One day after vice president Mike Pence and China’s president Xi Jinping clashed after exchanging sharply worded barbs in a showdown between the two superpowers, on Sunday the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit ended in unprecedented chaos and disarray, without agreement on a joint communique for the first time in its history as the escalating rivalry between the United States and China dominated proceedings and reflected escalating trade tensions.

Competition between the United States and China over the Pacific was also thrown into focus with the United States and its Western allies launching a coordinated response to China’s Belt and Road program, Reuters added.

One diplomat told Reuters tension between the U.S. and China, bubbling all week, erupted when the Chinese government’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, objected during a leaders’ retreat to two paragraphs in a draft document seen by Reuters. One mentioned opposing “unfair trade practices” and reforming the WTO, while another concerned sustainable development.

“These two countries were pushing each other so much that the chair couldn’t see an option to bridge them,” said the unnamed diplomat. “China was angered that the reference to WTO blamed a country for unfair trade practices.”

Sunday’s dramatic conclusion was foreshadowed by accusations that Chinese officials had attempted to strong-arm officials in Papua New Guinea, which was hosting the event, into issuing a statement that fitted what Beijing wanted. The Chinese vigorously denied the claims. When asked about the impasse, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill was quoted by the South China Morning Post saying: “You know the two big giants in the room, so what can I say?”

Instead of issuing a document that all 21 participants could agree O’Neill, said he would issue a “chair’s statement” reflecting the issues the participants did agree upon. The prime minister said the main area of disagreement was the insistence by one country — believed to be the US — that the communique would reflect the need for reform at the World Trade Organization.

O’Neill also said there had been disagreement on the bloc’s so called “Bogor Goals”, which require it to achieve free and open trade among its developing economies by 2020. And while O’Neill said the differences on that issue had been ironed out, there was no such luck when it came to the topic of WTO reforms.

President Trump has previously threatened to pull out of the organisation, claiming that its rules unfairly favoured China.

O’Neill did not say which country objected to WTO reforms but added: “Apec has got no charter over World Trade Organisation. That is a fact. That matter can be raised at the World Trade Organisation.”

China has said it broadly supports the WTO, while European Union proposals to reform the institution are expected to be tabled at the G20 summit in Argentina, where Trump and Xi are planning to meet in an effort to resolve their differences.

Additionally, Sunday’s developments also came with a side plot, with China pushing back against accusations that its officials had tried to “barge” their way into the office of New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato in an attempt to influence the communique. Citing three sources, a report by Agence France-Presse claimed that police had been called to turn the Chinese away.

But in a press conference on Sunday afternoon, senior foreign ministry official Wang Xiaolong said the reports were “simply not true”, adding: “We are having close interactions with Papua New Guinea colleagues … we are mostly on the same page both on the process as well as the substance of the agenda.”

Pato told Reuters the Chinese officials who had come to see him had been refused a meeting because they had not made the “necessary arrangements”.

Separately, Wang said that leaders had “made considerable progress” at the summit and “reaffirmed their common commitment to keep the momentum going. We will leave it now to hands of the host nation to capture the consensus that emerged during discussion” although according to media reports there was virtually none.

A senior government source from a Southeast Asian country told the South China Morning Post the last-minute talks had been “very tense”.

“Try as we did, we couldn’t come to an agreement on certain trade issues. The gulf was too big. The US and China could not see eye to eye… I am not too surprised at the outcome,” the source said.

Underscoring the dramatic tension between the two superpowers, another source told SCMP that while Asian countries had expected some disagreement over WTO reform, they did not expect the US and China to hold out to the extent of blocking a final communique……..more here