The Anti-Fun Palace: APEC Fence, Sydney lockdown

The APEC summit is in town, and Sydney is on full-alert. At least as much as Sydney is ever going to be. (Ed. This piece written on September 07, 2007.)

The leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum have more or less brought downtown to a standstill. Drawn from nations representing over 60% of the global GDP, featuring the premiers of the USA, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Australia and many others, it’s the most powerful international assembly ever in Australia. To some APEC appears to be little more than a talking shop, and others have grumbled about the upheaval the event is causing.

But former Australian PM, the outspoken Paul Keating, who provided much of the impetus for APEC in its early days, essentially says that the city should be proud APEC is here, and deal with it. (I agree with him, for what it’s worth, and despite what I write below.) Keating intriguingly goes on to suggest that “one of the greatest pieces of software that Australia developed in the 1980s and mid-1990s was foreign policy”, describing APEC as an artefact of that, and suggesting what the forum should really be about, particularly for Australia.

Meanwhile Sydney is just agog that Vladimir Putin is here, Shinzo Abe is here, Hu Jintao is here. George Bush “arrived by water” — I love that phrase, as if he splashed up…