APEC in 2023, a Conversation with Matt Murray

It’s the United States’ year to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, whose 21 members reach from Russia to the Pacific and from South America to China. U.S. Senior Official for APEC Matt Murray joins us to talk about how the big job is coming along.  

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Matt Murray (00:03):

We're in a very challenging moment when you consider the need to recover from the COVID pandemic when you consider some of the economic headwinds we're facing. Yes, there are geopolitical challenges as well. And so really we want to use our US host year to meet the moment that we're in.

Tracie Yang (00:19):

Its membership extends from Russia to the Pacific and from South America to China. APEC's agenda for 2023, today on In Asia, from the Asia Foundation. I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (00:31):

And I'm John Rieger. The US is taking its turn this year as host of APEC, the 21 member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. The official theme for 2023 is creating a resilient and sustainable future for all. And halfway through the year, we're eager to hear about how the big job is coming along.

Tracie Yang (00:47):

Joining us today to share his views on this and other things is US Senior official for APEC, Matt Murray. He's in San Francisco to plan the APEC Economic Leaders Week that will be rocking this city in November, and he has graciously consented to sit down with us today. Matt Murray, thank you for joining us.

Matt Murray (01:04):

Thank you. It's great to be here.

John Rieger (01:05):

Matt, APEC is almost 35 years old. What do you think some of APEC's biggest accomplishments have been since inception in 1989?

Matt Murray (01:14):

Well, great. Thank you very much again for the opportunity today. When I think about APEC and I think about the opportunity to host this year, I think first of all, APEC has been a terrific convener over the last almost 35 years, since 1989. It's been a platform for engagement with some of the key economies across the Asia Pacific region. Currently, 21 members account for half of global trade. And so I think that opportunity to convene at a leader's level, at a minister's level, and also importantly at the working level, an experts level is really, really tremendously important and keeps a lot of things going over time. And we've had some challenging periods during the history of APEC. We had the Asian financial crisis, we had 9/11, we had the global financial crisis. We now have Russia's war in Ukraine. There's a lot that APEC can be used to overcome as that sort of convening platform.

(02:08):

I think second, APEC is really been a place where we can engage stakeholders and particularly really advanced public-private collaboration. I think APEC has a very special place in that area. There's an APEC CEO Summit, which will be here in San Francisco in November, which we're very excited about. We want to do what we can in our host here to really reinvigorate that public-private collaboration and that public-private partnership because really that's what drives prosperity and creates jobs both here in the United States and around the region. And I think third, APEC has been a place where you can advance some outcomes. APEC is a consensus based non-binding organization, but it serves as an incubator for ideas and creates some opportunities. Some good examples are the World Trade Organization's Information Technology Agreement first started as a discussion in APEC. Work that WTO has done on environmental goods and services first started in APEC.

(03:04):

And I think really importantly, we've done a lot of work on women's economic empowerment, which actually started here in San Francisco in 2011 when then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, launched the APEC Women in Economy Forum in September of that year. And so I think there's a lot that we can do together with the other economies in the region. And over the last few years, despite COVID and despite a lot of the challenges that we've faced, APEC has done a pretty nice job of trying to build out specific outcomes in the areas of trade investment, innovation and digitalization, and also just strong, secure, balanced and inclusive growth. And so we feel like the opportunity to lead and to host this year is a really terrific opportunity that we want to take full advantage of.

Tracie Yang (03:48):

So the theme for this USA host year is creating a resilient and sustainable future for all. Can you talk about APEC's priorities for 2023?

Matt Murray (04:01):

Well, I think to put it to more succinctly, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said it very well in Bangkok last year at the closing of that ministerial meeting when he said, really, we want to use our US host year to meet the moment that we're in. We're in a very challenging moment when you consider the need to recover from the COVID pandemic, when you consider some of the economic headwinds we're facing. Yes, there are geopolitical challenges as well. And so what does it look like, future in the region where we can be more resilient, more sustainable, more inclusive? Resiliency is supply chains. It's food security. It's looking at good regulatory practices and creating good business environments. Sustainability obviously a very big concern at the moment across the entire region and across our country when it comes not only to the climate crisis, but also how do we get through that next clean energy revolution that we're all in the middle of right now. And then obviously inclusivity. We want to make sure that we really are lifting all communities at once and that nobody gets left behind.

John Rieger (05:09):

Matt, how does this year's theme build on Thailand's bio circular green economy theme from 2022?

Matt Murray (05:16):

I think it really is a nice follow on from what Thailand did last year, and I think before getting into that, really want to commend Thailand for the leadership they showed last year. You know, you really had an opportunity where we were kind of almost out of the pandemic, but not really. We had the Omicron outbreak in early 2022. And so what Thailand did was they really put sustainability front and center, and they also made sure that sustainable growth would be part of the work of every single working group across APEC on things like marine debris, IUU fishing, the climate crisis, et cetera. And so looking at how we can do that together, I think was a really important outcome from Thailand's year, I think then we really looked at that as an opportunity because of course this is also the same conversation that we're having in the United States around sustainability.

(06:11):

And so we kind of looked at it, well, how can we take what Thailand did and sort of take it to the next level? And one of the things we saw is that Thailand had really worked within the institution of APEC to build in, for example, the working level experts level type discussions on sustainability. But when we looked at the ministerial, we wanted to host, for example, in the APEC Coast year, in every single ministerial meeting, we can really push the sustainability agenda even further.

(06:39):

And I think a second area that we really saw an opportunity was in stakeholder engagement, because this is something the united we do very naturally in the United States is bring in the private sector, bring in other stakeholders, bring in civil society to really see what we can do together to advance sustainability. And so I'm constantly talking to my Thai counterpart about, does this make sense to you? Is this something, is this part of the vision that you had when you launched the bio circular green economy? And then obviously talking to a lot of our other APEC counterparts about how we can work together through our host year and into the future on this very important topic.

Tracie Yang (07:15):

So what's been on your APEC calendar so far in 2023, and what should we expect at the Economic Leaders Week in San Francisco at the end of the year?

Matt Murray (07:24):

Well, the APEC year, whether you're hosting or not, is this buildup over time. So we generally start in December with what's called an informal senior officials meeting. That meeting's fairly brief, just a few days, but includes a public facing symposium. So we hosted our informal senior officials meeting, or ISOM, in Honolulu in December, which we felt like was a good opportunity, again, to sort of make sure to emphasize to all the other APEC economies that we wanted to be a good steward of APEC as an organization, that we wanted to build on what Thailand as host had done. And before that, New Zealand has host and Malaysia as host. And so that was really important opportunity to really set that agenda. And I think we got a lot of really positive feedback from the other economies and also from some of the stakeholders that we were able to engage there.

(08:20):

And then we went into February, we met in Palm Springs. We were very interested in having a meeting in the southwestern United States because APEC not only includes Asian economies, but also a few Latin American economies as well, with Peru and Chile and Mexico. That was two weeks full of working level meetings, working group meetings. There was a policy partnership for food security. There was a policy partnership for Women in the economy. There was a policy partnership for science technology innovation, all of which had government and private sector in the room together. And then in May we were in Detroit. Detroit was fantastic. We had the trade ministerial meeting. We also had the transportation ministerial meeting. So the transportation was hosted by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the trade ministerial hosted by Ambassador Catherine Tai, our US trade representative. And that was a really great opportunity to again, elevate the discussion around how do we create a resilient and sustainable future for all.

(09:19):

Next, we head into Seattle in August. In Seattle, there will be six ministerial meetings. So we'll have a health ministerial meeting, disaster management, we'll have food security. We'll have small and medium-sized enterprises, energy ministerial meeting, and also the Women in Economy Forum. So it's a very, very full agenda for Seattle. We're also talking about Seattle as a digital month. We now have more than 40 or so engagements planned, some of which are with stakeholders, some of which are just government to government, focused on the digital economy. And then of course, all of this culminates in San Francisco.

John Rieger (09:58):

As well it should.

Matt Murray (10:00):

So it's great. It's a great opportunity to be here because when you think about all of the things that we're talking about in APEC, creating a resilient, sustainable future for all interconnected, innovative, inclusive, San Francisco is going to be a tremendous backdrop for all of it. When you think about the technology in Silicon Valley, when you think about the first mover sort of mentality here on sustainability and clean energy, when you think about the inclusivity and really the fabric of society here, San Francisco is going to be a great backdrop. And so compressed into about eight or nine days, you're going to have the APEC ministerial meeting, which will be co-chaired by Secretary Blinken and Ambassador Tai. You'll have the finance ministers meeting, which will be chaired by Secretary Yellen. You'll have the president coming for the leaders meetings, you'll have the CEO summit, you'll have the APEC Business Advisory Council meetings, and it'll just be a very, very full week of high level engagement. And we're very grateful to the city of San Francisco for being willing to serve as host.

John Rieger (11:06):

It all sounds very collegial. It sounds like a very collegial organization.

Matt Murray (11:10):

It is a collegial organization, and I think that that's got that C for cooperation in its DNA, but it's obviously just as impacted by geopolitical realities and conflict as anything else. I mean, last year, for example, Russia's invasion of Ukraine really colored a lot of the APEC discourse because of course, Russia is one of the 21 members. And so we worked with a lot of our like-minded partners and others to really highlight that it should not be business as usual with Russia at the table, and that we had very definite concerns about the impact of the war on the economies and the region. I think also quite obviously, the challenges between the United States and China right now are there and are real. And we just had Secretary Blinken in Beijing over the weekend for what he referred to as constructive and candid conversations with his counterparts.

(12:09):

And so certainly what happens in APEC doesn't happen in a vacuum. But at the same point, one of the things that I really like about APEC is that you do have this three plus decade long history of working on a consensus based, non-binding way. I mean, even just looking back to the COVID pandemic and how APEC economies were able to come together in the organization and share best practices, talk about ways that they might be able to restore travel and tourism more quickly, and doing all that together, I think is a good indicator of an area where the organization can be helpful to all of us.

John Rieger (12:47):

Some of the global issues on people's minds right now relate particularly to sustainability. And I'm thinking about the environment and also about demographics. And I'm sure you've noticed on your visit to the Bay Area that electric vehicles are everywhere. Southeast Asia is also on the verge of an explosion of EVs. How can APEC support EV rollout across member economies?

Matt Murray (13:11):

I think the biggest contribution APEC can make in areas like EVs is just the ability to build partnerships and to share best practices on how we can all move forward together. I mean, certainly it's also very clear we want as the United States to retain the competitive advantage in the areas of the industry where we have a competitive advantage, the innovation that we have here. And so I think we want to be able to find that right balance between building partnerships in the region and also making sure that we still advance our own competitive advantage.

(13:49):

So when you look back to Detroit, I think we tried to do that in a couple of ways. You had the transportation ministerial meeting that Secretary Buttigieg was hosting. There's a lot of discussion there around EVs and norms and standards when it comes to EVs. There was also a side event on EV financing. And so it's a very complex issue. Everything from supply chains to financing to critical minerals to just the innovations themselves. And so APEC is a place where 21 members can come together and share best practices and talk about what they're trying to do in the space. And so I think that's an area where we really have a tremendous opportunity this year.

Tracie Yang (14:33):

So several economies in the region are entering a new era of rapidly aging societies. They're getting old before they reach upper income status, and many are worried that it could stall their economic progress. How does APEC view this challenge?

Matt Murray (14:52):

It is a tremendous challenge around the region, and we look at a lot of the health related issues through the health ministerial that we're going to be holding in Seattle and early August. But I think more broadly when you step back, a lot of this is about how do you continue to maintain economic growth in the region when we do have demographics that look like they do when it comes to the aging population. So a lot of this also has to do with workforce development, and a lot of this also has to do with innovation and education and women's economic empowerment and the care economy and a whole bunch of different areas related to the changing demographics that we see. I think when we look at the aging populations, obviously tremendous concern in Northeast Asia, for example, looking at how economies are changing, how workforces need to change and adapt as well. And looking at the role innovation can play there, I think these are all areas that APEC can help address.

John Rieger (16:05):

How can nonprofits like the Asia Foundation play a role?

Matt Murray (16:08):

Well, the Asia Foundation has played a tremendously helpful role in APEC throughout its history. Even before APEC existed, the Asia Foundation has been there. I think one of the key ways that I have seen over the last couple of years since I've been in this role as senior official from the United States is the APEC app challenge. The Asia Foundation works with Google and a number of other partners to deliver the app challenge, and this year we had more entries for the app challenge than ever before. It's exciting. I've said to many people that the best part of my year last year in Thailand was when I got to be a judge for the APEC app challenge.

Tracie Yang (16:49):

Yes. We actually interviewed the winners of the APEC app challenge.

John Rieger (16:54):

And boy, did they have a lot of energy.

Matt Murray (16:56):

Yeah, it was fantastic. And I think why is that so important? Well, there's a couple of reasons it's so important. One is the APEC app challenge is a place where we're engaging young people. I think this year we had 35 teams. We're going to bring five to the United States for the final pitches and the contest in Seattle. It's really tremendous, not just because it's one event on our calendar every year, but because of what that means for the way our young people around the region really look at APEC and look at the opportunities to advance economic growth. I think that in areas like that and in so many other ways where the Asia Foundation is partnering with different organization, businesses and civil society organizations to really promote that kind of dialogue is extremely important.

Tracie Yang (17:44):

So we can't let this conversation end without bringing up the issue, getting a lot of attention in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and that's artificial intelligence. Does APEC need to have a conversation about artificial intelligence?

Matt Murray (18:02):

I think no matter where we are and what we're doing, we're all having conversations about artificial intelligence, right?

John Rieger (18:07):

We're Googling it all day.

Tracie Yang (18:10):

Are you chatting with ChatGPT?

Matt Murray (18:10):

Well, look, I've got three sons. One is an English teacher and two are students, right? The English teacher is checking to make sure his students aren't using artificial intelligence or ChatGPT to write their papers. One of my sons who's in university is looking at AI in ethics. Another student who's headed to university in the fall is very interested in cyber and computer science and the applications for AI therein. So I think sort of a microcosm of the way a lot of us need to look at AI. So certainly in APEC, there's got to be room for discussions around artificial intelligence as it relates to the digital economy. I think one of the great things about APEC, again throughout its 30 plus year history, is that it has been able to tackle some of the emerging challenges of our time. I mentioned earlier the Women in Economy Forum that was launched during the US host year in 2011.

(19:06):

That was an issue that was really at a crisis point in terms of women's economic participation around the region. And APEC was able to shine a spotlight on that issue and continue work in that area over the last 12 years. I think when you look at AI, certainly if we're talking about a digital economy, we need to have a conversation around AI as well. The challenge of course in APEC is that if you polled the 21 members, you would probably get 21 very different answers to the question of what makes for a healthy digital economy or what makes for the correct application of AI.

Tracie Yang (19:46):

But at the end of the day, you want that. You need that diverse.

Matt Murray (19:49):

Exactly. You need the diverse opinion, and you also need to have a table around which those 21 economies can come and talk about those issues. I think that we have plenty of conversations in APEC where we don't get a hundred percent agreement. We're always trying to get to consensus on a pathway forward in some of these areas. But I often think that just by bringing up the issues, raising the issues, having those discussions, I think that in of itself is a positive outcome.

John Rieger (20:20):

Matt, you obviously have a very full schedule, lots of travel, lots of meetings, and I just have to ask, how's the food?

Matt Murray (20:28):

In which place? That's one of the best things about travel, right? I mean, let's see. In the last six or seven months, I've been in Singapore and Malaysia, and I've also been at the OECD in Paris. I've been in Tokyo, and now of course, across the country in San Francisco and Detroit, and I was in Atlanta, I was in Pittsburgh. I've been in Honolulu and Palm Springs.

John Rieger (20:54):

You must be a somewhat intrepid traveler to really ring the pleasure out of these many places.

Matt Murray (20:59):

It's great. And what I've really enjoyed about APEC and hosting APEC this year is the opportunity to travel in our own country. I've been a diplomat for 25 years. I have a pretty good handle on what that means to go overseas and either be posted in a place or to travel to a place and try to get business done. And I focused on Asia throughout my career, so I love the food in Asia. I'll put that out there for sure. But the opportunity to travel in our own country and learn how does this economic engagement with Asia really impact our own country? Where are some of the missed opportunities perhaps, or where are some of the opportunities that we could take full advantage of if we're having a better conversation within our own country about what that means? That's been a real, I think, special privilege of the last year. And so we have been traveling. My colleague Sue has really set up this APEC Connect kind of program where we can really get out much more across the United States. And there's good food everywhere.

Tracie Yang (22:03):

US senior official for APEC, Matt Murray. Thank you so much for joining us.

Matt Murray (22:07):

Thank you. It's been awesome to be here.

John Rieger (22:09):

That's our show for this week. We hope you enjoyed it, and that you'll take a few minutes to peruse some of our other offerings on the In Asia blog. Lots of smart people there writing about development in the Asia Pacific region.

Tracie Yang (22:19):

And while you're at it, why not subscribe to our podcast? We'd love to have you. Until next time, I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (22:25):

And I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (22:26):

Thanks for listening.