Chilean President Sebastian Pinera (C) arrives to make an announcement at the La Moneda Presidential Palace in Santiago, Chile, Oct. 30, 2019. (Sebastian Beltran Gaete/Agencia Uno via Xinhua)
It remained unclear on Thursday whether two key international meetings — the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting and the United Nations COP25 climate change conference — would be held elsewhere after the planned host, Chile, announced their cancellation on Wednesday.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said his government decided to cancel the events after nearly two weeks of sometimes violent protests rocked the nation.
Pinera said in a televised address he would focus on restoring security and move ahead in the coming days with an attempt to satisfy popular demands for better social services and a lower cost of living.
It is the first time a country has pulled out of hosting the conference since APEC, the intragovernmental forum, was established in 1989.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Thursday that China understands and respects Chile's decision to cancel the APEC meeting, and that he believes that the Chilean government and people will restore order as soon as possible.
As this year's host country, Chile had done much work to prepare for the meeting, he said.
APEC is an important platform for economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and has made important contributions to regional development and improving people's lives, Geng said.
China considers APEC cooperation to be very important and hopes to work with all related parties to make sure APEC continues its important role in economic cooperation in both the Asia-Pacific region and the world, he added.
The APEC Leaders' Meeting was scheduled to be held on Nov 16 and 17 in Santiago, the Chilean capital, and the United Nations climate meeting was scheduled for Dec 2 to 13.
The APEC Secretariat said in a statement on Thursday that it supports Chile's decision as the safety and welfare of Chile and its member economies are APEC's "utmost priority".
"We thank Chile for tirelessly advocating more-inclusive growth throughout its host year, including by prioritizing the economic empowerment of women and small businesses," the statement said.
No further details were given on whether another country would attempt to host the meeting this year, although the statement mentioned that Malaysia will host APEC in 2020. Media reports also said the United Nations is now looking at alternative venues for the Conference of the Parties, or COP25, to discuss the implementation of the Paris climate accord — a landmark international agreement first signed at COP21 in December 2015.
As for the APEC meeting, He Yun, an assistant professor at Hunan University's School of Public Management, said it might be possible for organizers to skip a year given that it would not be easy to immediately make the necessary security arrangements.
"The APEC Secretariat should have further discussions on its rotating host mechanism and alternative hosting country mechanism, so as to cope with such incidents in the future," He added.
Zhu Zhongbo, deputy director of the Latin American and Caribbean institute at China Institute of International Studies, expressed his regret over the canceled meeting.
"Amid the backdrop of slowing global economic growth, especially when trade protectionism and unilateralism are becoming rising trends, the scheduled APEC meeting was expected to be conducive for countries to discuss promoting regional and global economic growth cooperation".
