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Atlanta may not be the first city that comes to mind in the context of U.S. economic relations with Asia.
The Southeast sits much farther away geographically than the Pacific Coast, and while the Asian American population here is becoming a vital political bloc as it grows, it’s proportionally smaller than in other locales.
But with hundreds of investors from Japan, a boom in Korean automotive and cleantech projects and a key diaspora and tech connection with India, Georgia’s Asian bona fides are on the rise.
Its $13 billion in exports to Asia, connections via the world’s busiest airport and cadre of corporate giants focused intently on the region, like the UPS headquarters and Visa’s local operation, only help the case, said Matt Murray, the senior official representing the U.S. at the 21-nation Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, a 34-year-old multilateral body includes countries making up 60 percent of the global economy and 60 percent of U.S. exports.
“The city of Atlanta also resonates as a backdrop for so many of our goals for international economic policy: innovation and renewable-energy transition, worker-centered trade, public health and economic inclusion, all of which will be key to our success at APEC,” Mr. Murray said.
A career diplomat for the U.S. State Department with stints in embassies in Beijing, Mr. Murray was nominated for the rank of ambassador in his role at APEC, showing the importance of the bloc to U.S. economic diplomacy outreach.
APEC is a “consensus-based, non-binding forum” that is unique in its makeup amid the growing alphabet-soup of competing blocs overlaid on the region that will determine the world’s economic future.
More recent bodies, like the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, and the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, are often framed as evidence of growing U.S.-China competition.
APEC is one of the few remaining forums where the U.S. and China come together, and a rare group where Taiwan participates as a full member under the name Chinese Taipei.
Complicating things over the last year, Russia also retains membership, alongside friendly Western Hemisphere trade partners like Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile, and South Korea is in the mix along with Australia and a smattering of Southeast Asian nations.
Mr. Murray outlined the priorities for the U.S.’s host year in a keynote luncheon speech at the Symposium for U.S.-Asia Partnership Opportunities, or SAUPO, a forum at Kennesaw State University that started in 2011 — coincidentally the last year that the United States hosted APEC’s full slate of meetings.
Achieving the U.S.’s APEC 2023 priorities — creating an interconnected, innovative and inclusive region — requires getting outside Washington, Mr. Murray told Global Atlanta in an interview.
“We do want to focus on the C in APEC, the cooperation piece, but we can’t do that if we don’t understand the viewpoint from domestic stakeholders” Mr. Murray said.
SAUPO at Kennesaw State, he said, with its focus on partnerships and networking among more than 300 attendees, was a key place to achieve this.
“I love the name of this conference,” he said.
The APEC rep paired his conference participation with visits to local Asia-based companies: YKK, the Japan-owned zipper manufacturer with a nearly 50-year history in Georgia, as well as the new SK Battery plant in Commerce, which he called a “game changer” for the U.S.
“What I loved walking around there was seeing a workforce of all education levels, all different ethnicities, all different ages, men, women. I mean, it was one of the most diverse workforces I’ve ever seen — in Commerce, Georgia, making this very high tech product,” he said.
Both YKK and SK were represented on the first SAUPO panel discussion.
Mr. Murray said two of the five U.S. APEC conclaves for this year have already taken place, in Honolulu and Palm Springs, with two meetings among transportation and trade ministers planned for Detroit in May. After Seattle hosts six ministerials in August, the eyes of the world will turn to the culmination in San Francisco in November, where President Biden and other top officials will join the APEC leaders meeting.
While Atlanta doesn’t host any of the meetings, it does have some connections with APEC through its APEC Business Advisory Council, or ABAC, which hosted a key meeting here in early 2019.
This brought top leaders from international corporations — each APEC member country gets three representatives on ABAC — to the city.
Atlanta is also connected with the council through UPS’s Laura Lane, the company’s executive vice president and chief corporate affairs officer. Mark Burkhalter, a former Republican speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, recently rolled off his Trump-appointed term on ABAC.
APEC’s convening role at a time of global challenges
In an interview, Mr. Murray told Global Atlanta that APEC’s longevity has shown its power in bringing countries together for mutual benefit even at difficult times.
“APEC has survived the Asian financial crisis. It survived 9/11, it survived the global financial crisis. It survived wars. It’s now survived COVID. It’s persevered through all of that, and it’s continued to be a convener of these 21 economies, a platform for engagement, both multilaterally and bilaterally,” he said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents an acute challenge to APEC, which in a recent communique adopted language that condemned the aggression but also left room for “other views” to get Russia to sign on.
“We’re very concerned about that war of aggression that Russia has perpetrated. In the APEC context, we’re also very concerned about the impact it has on the region’s economy — food security, energy security, prices, all of those things.”
U.S. rivalry with China, particularly on items like semiconductors and batteries that the U.S. has embraced as national-security imperatives, presents another challenge — particularly considering that participating economies don’t want to be forced to choose sides.
Mr. Murray, a Mandarin speaker who served in the U.S.’s Beijing embassy twice and Shanghai consulate once, said the U.S. seeks to maintain a collaborative spirit within APEC, focusing on common challenges like sustainability and inclusion instead of geopolitical competition.
“I’m not going to take an attitude into APEC meetings that it’s the United States versus China. And I don’t think that other APEC partners want us to take that approach anyway,” he said.
The U.S. will never “pick a fight” with China that is not representative of the feelings of the broader bloc, he told Global Atlanta.
“We want to work with all of the partners in APEC to the extent possible, but the message I’ve shared with China, but I’ve also shared importantly with our other partners, is that I will push back on China in two instances: One is when I feel like they’re undermining international rules and norms, and the other is when we believe that they’re undermining APEC as an institution.”
China’s APEC priorities
After Mr. Murray’s speech, the SAUPO audience had the all-too-rare chance to hear directly from a Chinese government entity, an intentional programming choice by May Gao, the Chinese-American Kennesaw State professor whose passion for international communication birthed the SAUPO conference.
Zhao Jianying, the deputy general representative at the U.S. office of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, provided views from one of the country’s largest economic development organizations, which boasts branches in all of China’s provinces, down to the prefecture level. Founded in 1988, CCPIT has more than 30 offices around the world and often plays a key role in coordinating overseas delegations, including many to Atlanta over the years.
Ms. Zhao’s remarks mostly focused on her own experience with APEC, helping with the China delegation to Honolulu in 2011, taking the opportunity to hit the beaches and snorkel between meetings. Atlanta, she said, hosted her first visit to the continental United States, complete with visits to the World of Coca-Cola and the CNN center.
She also worked on the CEO forum in 2014, when China last hosted the APEC conclave, and emphasized that this year a delegation of Chinese executives would travel to San Francisco to the leaders forum this November.
The emphasis on collaboration and focus on the future reflect similar priorities from the U.S. host effort 12 years ago, also the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac, she said.
“It is said that you can’t step in the same river twice, but sometimes I have the impression that you can,” Ms. Zhao said.
For its part, China will host a supply-chain expo in November with a focus on life sciences, smart vehicles and research. In May, the country is welcoming companies to the Global Trade and Investment Promotion Summit.
“China will continue to follow high-standard opening up, refine the service policies and will create a better business environment or a foreign investment,” Ms. Zhao said.
That’s exactly what the U.S. wants to see as it focuses on a smoother environment for business across all member economies in the post-pandemic era, Mr. Murray said.
He added that the U.S. remains committed to international trade even as it undertakes unprecedented support for domestic industry, especially when it comes to the electric-vehicle and battery sector fueling Georgia’s record-setting growth.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which contains huge incentives for domestic production, does not include a carveout for Korea-made vehicles, leading to concern at Georgia partners Kia, Hyundai and SK. They contend that the law puts their products at a disadvantage even as they build critical pieces of the EV future in Georgia and across the U.S.
“We have to find the right balance and strike the right balance. We all do,” Mr. Murray told Global Atlanta. “But we do know we can’t make, manufacture and mine everything in United States, so we need international partners. At the same point, we want to make more, manufacture more, and mine more in the United States.”
At a conference focused heavily on knowledge-sharing and networking, Mr. Murray also encouraged Asian studies majors to continue focusing on Asian languages and cultures, noting that he was first introduced to APEC as an intern in Jakarta 30 years ago and never thought he would be representing the U.S. at the group.
Learn more about the U.S. priorities for APEC 2023.
Learn more about U.S. APEC 2023 on the State Department’s website
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