Editor's note: In this video published as part of CGTN's coverage of the 2025 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in South Korea, Krzysztof Pelc, an adjunct professor at Korea University and political science professor at the University of Oxford, says that amid global trade-related tensions, APEC serves as an ideal platform for reaching positive outcomes due to its consensus-based structure. He further describes the factors that led to the "Asia-Pacific miracle" in recent decades.

APEC as a diplomatic forum

The important thing to remember is that APEC really is a forum. It has no treaty, has no binding obligations, so it's very much a diplomatic meeting; all the decisions are made by consensus. It's a very loose organization, but actually that looseness might be ideal for the very fragmented economic environment that we currently see globally. Amidst the tensions that we see between the major trading blocks, the fact that you have this very soft diplomatic consensus-based organization might actually be more favorable to reaching some sort of a positive outcome.

So, I actually have quite high expectations that something might take place, so far as we might see signals of a willingness to engage towards future trade cooperation. What we've often seen in APEC is that it becomes an incubator. It's often the term that's used, because it's the birthplace of ideas that then are developed further on.

The Asia-Pacific miracle: What fueled the growth?

The growth of the Asia-Pacific region, since the 1980s, is often referred to as the "Asia-Pacific miracle." So far, experts, economists and political scientists are still debating all the reasons that explain all the factors behind this economic miracle. But there's consensus over some of the basic fundamental factors.

Export-driven economies

The first one is that this growth was export-driven, so firms were responding to demand – from especially the West – that came from countries that still had open markets. The United States, for instance, during this period – the 1980s, the 1990s and the early 2000s – maintained open markets. The state in China, in South Korea and in Japan was quite present; it was responding to global market signals. It offered support rather than trying to insulate the markets from external pressure.

High domestic savings

Another factor is very high domestic savings rates. Citizens in these countries across the entire (western) Asia-Pacific region saved a lot, often double the savings rate of similar countries in the West, so it led to investment in the economy, in education and infrastructure that could come from within the country, rather than relying on external borrowing and debt.

Favorable conditions and absorptive capacity

A third factor might simply be luck. This is a period during which energy costs are quite low, during which the rest of the world is quite open. Providing this great demand, there's this line about how luck is a little bit like rain, you need a bucket to catch it, and the Asia-Pacific region during that time had that bucket. It had what sometimes experts called "absorptive capacity." It was able to take advantage of these favorable conditions, because it had high education, high literacy, and the ability to invest and to keep investing.

During this period (1980s-2000s), we saw this great growth that was able to fuel further growth. There's a bit of wage suppression, so consumption remains low, and the savings keep getting reinvested and creates this positive cycle of growth.

(Interviewer and script editor Lu Xiaoyi, video editor Zhou Qinlin and cover editor Zhang Ruixin contributed to the production of this video. If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on X to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)