Still searching for the Apec identity

Former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans famously quipped that Apec was "four adjectives in search of a noun". Almost two decades on, not much seems to have changed, with the gathering still lacking a coherent identity within the alphabet soup of Asian institutionalism.

While last weekend's gathering in Vladivostok did agree to some important reductions of green tariffs, the continuing regional dispute over the South China Sea barely rated a mention outside press conferences and meetings on the sidelines.

And with Russian President Vladimir Putin pumping in more than US$21 billion to showcase his country's East Asian portal city, the legacy of this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum summit will be little more than its location.

In recent years, the risk of a wholesale collapse of Apec has only intensified. The elevation of the G20 to heads-of-government level in 2008, which includes nine Apec members, removed what the East West Centre's Charles Morrison has described as the "international dating service" imperative of Apec for many regional leaders outside the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to get together.

This was followed in 2010 by the enlargement of the East Asia Summit to include both the US and Russia, immediately placing newfound demands on the White House to commit to two annual visits to the region.

This year, after Russia abruptly shifted the Apec gathering forward by three months - apparently to avoid the Vladivostok winter - US President Barack Obama was forced to announce he could not attend, given its proximity to the US presidential election.