It was late afternoon when Rimbink Pato, Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister, heard a loud commotion outside his door. Seconds later, four Chinese
diplomats burst uninvited into his office, demanding last-minute changes to
the communiqué of the 2018 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit,
the Pacific’s most important economic and political forum.
For Papua New Guinea to have even hosted a meeting of APEC, whose
members represent around 60 percent of the world’s GDP, was a feat in itself.
The sprawling archipelagic nation in the middle of the South Pacific has a
population of just 8.6 million people and is among the poorest on earth. With
850 languages and more than 600 islands, it was difficult to govern at the best
of times. The capital Port Moresby had a reputation for violence, prompting
the country’s southern neighbor and former colonial overlord Australia to
provide security for the event by stationing a warship in the harbor