A major leaders’ coup in midst of Covid

As the Delta variant of Covid-19 started taking its toll, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told her officials: ‘‘We’ve got to get moving.’’ And so a special, extra Apec meeting was born.

As the Covid-19 pandemic persisted and the more-infectious Delta variant came to dominate, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern decided Apec leaders could not wait until November to meet.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) officials organising Apec, being hosted by New Zealand in 2021, were told by Ardern: ‘‘We’ve got to get moving’’.

The solution would become a major coup for New Zealand, a moment which Ardern said would be the ‘‘legacy’’ of the country’s hosting year.

Leaders from the 21 countries were assembled for an informal meeting held in July, the first ever outside the formal summit, which measurably eased the passage of Covid-19 supplies across many of the forum’s countries.

‘‘She basically said to us, ‘I want that to happen’. And so we, as one does, when the prime minister says, ‘Make it happen’ ...

We made it happen,’’ MFAT deputy secretary Vangelis Vitalis said.

Making it happen was the challenge. Vitalis said there was no immediate enthusiasm from many Apec members, who sought to remind New Zealand ‘‘you only get one leaders’ meeting a year, and it’s in November’’.

‘‘We needed to persuade people, we also need to be clear that this is something the prime minister wanted to happen.’’

The meeting would also be the first between President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden, who had been in the job for six months. The possibility that geopolitical tensions between the two powers would spill into the meeting was a consideration.

‘‘The fact that they would be in that first meeting? Yeah, of course, that was certainly factor ... all 21 of us were thinking about, OK, so how do we grapple with this?’’ Vitalis said.

‘‘How do we make sure the agenda is a lively one, and really does reflect the urgency of the crisis we’ve got?’’

In the immediate leadup to the meeting, in a move possibly revealing the competition at play, Xi committed China to providing $US3 billion in Covid-19 aid in the coming three years. (Ardern declined to comment on this afterward). Ardern also spoke with Biden directly prior to the meeting, their first phone call since he took office.

‘‘The prime minister was very focused on this is about responding to an economic and health crisis ... And all of the bilateral tensions? Fair enough, but this is about Apec,’’ Vitalis said.

‘‘And I think, you know, she managed that very nicely in the way she does in the chairing process.’’

Ardern said it was apparent early on that Apec would be missing something due to being held virtually: that informality ‘‘around the margins’’ of meetings, where ideas are shared and built upon without being stifled by the formality of the formal leaders’ summit.

‘‘What I’ve always found useful in the Apec meetings I’ve had is that often the really useful engagement comes off the back of presentations and formal presentations by the IMF [International Monetary Fund],’’ she said.

‘‘There’s often not a scripted dialogue there, you know, you see leaders engage with questions and debate and discussion. So we tried to format the meeting to allow for that as well, even though it was