Scott Morrison ‘living in a world of denial’ over APEC ‘success’, Bill Shorten says

Bill Shorten says Scott Morrison is “in a world of denial” calling the summit a success.

Minister Scott Morrison gives Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill a Wallabies rugby union jersey at a barbecue for Pacific Islands leaders at the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten has blasted Donald Trump for not attending APEC and says Scott Morrison is “living in a world of denial” for calling this year’s Papua New Guinea summit a success.

Scott Morrison told reporters in Port Moresby this morning that the summit had been “very successful” despite the failure to produce a leaders’ communique due to conflicts between China and the United States over global trading reforms.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says the US president should have attended APEC. Picture: AAP

The Opposition Leader said President Trump should have been at the summit instead of Vice President Mike Pence, and that Mr Morrison could not ignore the failure of the summit.

“I, like many Australians, am disappointed at the lost opportunity of this most recent APEC meeting. I would have preferred if President Trump had been able to attend,” he told reporters in Melbourne.

“More than that, I also recognise that we have a growing sharp economic divide between China and the United States.”

“I don’t think we can live in a world of denial and pretend that APEC was a success, when it wasn’t.”

Mr Shorten said Australia had to “redouble it efforts” to bridge divisions between China and the United States along with other Pacific nations.

Mr Morrison said earlier today that disagreements between the two major powers would be picked up at the forthcoming G20 summit in Argentina, and that progress on the digital economy meant this weekend’s meeting in Port Moresby was a success.

APEC a ‘success despite tension’

Scott Morrison says China and the United States have been sent a “very clear” message by APEC and East Asia Summit nations to resolve their differences but rejected suggestions that this year’s APEC summit had been a failure because the superpowers were unable to reach an agreed consensus position at the summit’s conclusion in Papua New Guinea yesterday.

Leaders failed to put out a communique for the first time in APEC history this weekend after Chinese officials refused to sign up to the United States’ calls for reforms to world trading rules.

The Prime Mister said the APEC community shouldn’t pretend there was agreement between the global superpowers when there was not, but both were under international pressure to resolve damaging trade tensions.

“I can say very clearly that the other economies around the table here, and nations’s that sat around the East Asia Summit, it has been made very clear to both the United States and China that we want to see these issues resolved,” the Prime Minister said.

Amid a new Pacific “step up” by Australia and a combined western push-back of China, the Prime Minister praised his PNG counterpart Peter O’Neill for his handling of the meeting in “testing” times.

“The chair will issue a statement,” he said. “I thought that took a lot of courage from the chair to do that yesterday, because if they’re not gong to agree, if the major powers here are not going to agree, we shouldn’t be pretending that they do, and we shouldn’t be trying to smooth that over for the sake of a communique, and we should call it out.”

Mr Morrison said any trade issues between Beijing and Washington would be sorted out at the G20 summit in Argentina.

“There are still some points of disagreement between the major players here at APEC and the fact that they disagree on a number of things, that’ll be picked up at the G20,” he said.

Mr Morrison said PNG had hosted a “very successful APEC”, with “many agreements”, especially around the digital economy.

But Mr Mr Morrison said Australia still wanted to see freer trade.

“We’re all still absolutely committed to stronger trading outcomes because we understand that in the APEC family we’ve been able to reduce tariffs, we’ve been able to increase the size of our economies,” he said.

On the final day of the APEC summit, Australia, the US, Japan and New Zealand confirmed they would fund a massive electricity and fibre-optic rollout.

The investment will be the first under Australia’s new trilateral infrastructure fund with the US and Japan, which is aimed at countering surging debt diplomacy under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative.

Vice President Mike Pence also announced the United States would join Australia in setting up a military base on Manus Island, in competition with China’s growing military might in the region.

‘No conflict with China’

Defence Minister Christopher Pyne says increased infrastructure spending in PNG is not related to China. Picture: AAP

Earlier Defence Minister Christopher Pyne said that a new military base and heightened infrastructure spending in Papua New Guinea would not derail the “reset” of Australia’s relationship with China, Defence Minister Christopher Pyne says.

Mr Pyne said that any moves in the Pacific were not related to China and were only spurned on by Scott Morrison’s commitment to support Pacific nations.

“No, I certainly don’t. And it shouldn’t be seen in the context of China. It should be seen in the context of Australia being responsible for a large part of the South West Pacific,” he told RN Breakfast.

“It shouldn’t be seen as a conflict with China.”

The APEC summit in Port Moresby descended into chaos yesterday after leaders failed to put out a leaders’ communique for the first time in its history after conflicts with Chinese officials.

Australia has been attempting to thaw relations with Beijing in recent months. Last week, Foreign Minister Marise Payne made the first visit of an Australian foreign minister to the Chinese capital in two and a half years.

But on the final day of the APEC summit, Australia, the US, Japan and New Zealand confirmed they would fund a massive electricity and fibre-optic rollout.

The investment will be the first under Australia’s new trilateral infrastructure fund with the US and Japan, which is aimed at countering surging debt diplomacy under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative.

Vice President Mike Pence also announced the United States would join Australia in setting up a military base on Manus Island, in competition with China’s growing military might in the region.