ANALYSIS - As Trump skips APEC, China's Xi fills the void with message on trade

The split-screen moment captured a shift in global economic leadership: U.S. President Donald Trump heads home after a 24-hour visit, while China's leader settles in for a festival of multilateral diplomacy that America now sees as an afterthought.

This encapsulates a change in the contest for influence across the Asia-Pacific, home to the world's fastest-growing economies and critical supply chains rattled by Trump's tariffs.

MULTILATERALISM, VERSUS 'AMERICA FIRST'

As Washington embraces barriers and bilateral deal-making, Beijing positions itself as the predictable champion of free and open trade, a role the U.S. has dominated for decades.

"We must practice true multilateralism, and enhance the authority and effectiveness of the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core," Xi told the leaders gathered for the opening of APEC, referring to the World Trade Organization.

Xi called on the gathering of leaders, where U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood in for Trump, to "update international economic and trade rules to reflect the changing times, so as to better protect the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries."

However, many Asian nations are wary of China's stated support given its muscular defence posture in the region, dominance in manufacturing, and its own willingness to use export controls and other tools in trade disputes.

Trump's decision to skip the APEC summit marks a dramatic reversal in Washington's engagement with an institution the U.S. helped create with Australia in 1989 as part of America's post-Cold War vision of binding the region's economies through trade.

The U.S. leader has stunned global markets with his "Liberation Day" tariffs and has forced most economies into tough bilateral talks, hiking levies on their products and forcing them to commit to hundreds of billions of dollars in investment.

At the forum, U.S. Senior Official to APEC Casey Mace described America's presence at the event as "very strong and robust," adding that schedules "didn't align perfectly to allow for President Trump to stay for all of the events".

Hours after returning to Washington from his Asia tour, Trump hosted the White House's annual Halloween party, along with first lady Melania Trump.

China has sought to exploit the uncertainity brought by Trump policies, through diplomacy and by making inroads into markets that are even more crucial for Beijing at a time of sagging growth and Western accusations that it has fuelled global overcapacity through cheap exports.

Far more than a tactical ploy, the rewiring of the trading system is a long-term strategy for China. Its forthcoming five-year economic plan outlines ways to "safeguard the multilateral trading system and promote broader international economic flows."

Beyond messaging, China has also taken action. During a trip to Malaysia last week, Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kuala Lumpur and signed an upgraded China-ASEAN free trade deal.

As was the case at APEC, the contrast with the U.S. was palpable. Trump's six-hour blitz of meetings at the ASEAN forum achieved four trade deals -- but none of them reduced U.S. trade barriers and some included further threats.

They stipulated that if a country deepens relations with another that "jeopardizes essential U.S. interests" it would face more levies, in what experts say is a reference to China.

"The upgraded free trade agreement only reinforces China's dominant posture in terms of regional economic engagement," Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center think-tank, said in reference to the China-ASEAN deal.

"In comparison, U.S. bilateral trade deals with individual countries are much more circumstantial and limited in their scope."

PRICE OF FREE TRADE

Although no policy breakthroughs are expected at APEC, Xi's presence at the summit, along with Li's at ASEAN, sends a powerful message about China investing in relationship-building with regional countries, say analysts.

Sun said that compared to China's consistent presence, U.S. "inevitably appears selective and conditional".

Xi will hold meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Friday and both meetings are likely to be difficult, given Takaichi's hardline conservative bent and China's ongoing trade dispute with Canada.

But countries in the region are also wary of China's economic dominance, its ownwillingness to use trade barriers as a weapon, and its export-led model flooding other countries with cheap goods that creates fears of deindustrialisation.

China this month said it would dramatically ratchet up its restrictions on rare earths exports, including outside of China's borders, sending shockwaves through already brittle global supply chains.

"China is very powerful, a big country in terms of economy, and they try to make use of these U.S. tariff issues in order to pretend as if they are the guardian or champion of the free trade system," said Japanese foreign ministry spokesperson Toshihiro Kitamura on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting.

"But for Japan, it's not true. As I said, for example, the rare earths issue, they try to utilise their own resources in order to impose their positions on politics to others. So we don't think that they are champions of the free trade system."

Eric Olander of the China Global South Project added that China's strategy was "through expanded trade, infrastructure development, and supply chain logistics to bind this region to the Chinese economy to the point where it eventually becomes totally unfeasible for countries to extricate themselves from their reliance on Chinese economic engagement."