Deeper cooperation key to Asia-Pacific digital continuity

Asia-Pacific economies must deepen collaboration and safeguard digital continuity as geopolitical tensions threaten to fragment the region's interconnected economies, speakers said at a forum in southern China.

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Regional Cooperation Roundtable, hosted by the Boao Forum for Asia on Tuesday in Haikou, Hainan province, Zhang Jun, secretary-general of the forum, warned that unilateralism and protectionism are severely undermining the multilateral trading system and global economic order. He called on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and its upcoming Shenzhen meeting to bring renewed momentum to economic globalization and regional cooperation.

"The Asia-Pacific region is a core sector of the global economy, with economic growth and innovation at its core," Zhang said. "APEC is the region with the highest level, the broadest scope and the most influential economic cooperation mechanism."

Mu Hong, vice-chairman of the 14th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee and China's chief representative to the BFA, said the world faces both profound challenges and opportunities. While geopolitical conflicts persist and unilateral sanctions bring continuous shocks, the new round of technological revolution — represented by artificial intelligence — is reshaping the global industrial landscape and injecting new impetus into sustainable development.

The discussions underscored a growing consensus that technological cooperation, rather than confrontation, is essential for regional prosperity.

Christopher Findlay, honorary professor at the Australian National University and vice-chair of the Australian Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, argued that the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific agenda should focus on practical, bottom-up cooperation rather than sweeping reciprocal mega bargains. He noted that services trade, especially digital delivery, is growing much faster than goods trade, and that barriers in these fields are regulatory impediments behind the border rather than border measures.

"Resolving those sorts of impediments is not about negotiation. It's more about cooperation — about understanding why you are intervening and whether we can find alignment and lower business costs," Findlay said.

He acknowledged that parts of the digital agenda — such as data movement and the technologies that carry it — remain deeply entangled with security concerns, but added, "I think there are practical ways of dealing with those security concerns without stopping the whole project."

Findlay proposed a model of "nested regionalism", allocating specific integration tasks to the institutions best equipped to deliver them, with ASEAN playing a critical leadership role.

"The question about the FTAAP is not which agreement is the pathway," Findlay said. "It's more about what are the immediate tasks, which institution is good for doing which task, and how they get done."

Luigi Gambardella, president of the ChinaEU digital association that is focused on protecting digital economies from geopolitical disruptions, proposed an Asian Digital Continuity Agreement to ensure essential digital services — such as critical cloud functions, cybersecurity tools and core AI capabilities — remain operational even when political relations deteriorate.

"Digital sovereignty should not mean that every country has to build everything alone, but digital dependence should not mean that another country can switch off an essential part of your economy," Gambardella said.

He also called for an "AI for All" approach, ensuring meaningful access to sufficiently powerful AI for citizens, students and small businesses through access credits or vouchers. Additionally, he proposed an AI Trust Passport to make evidence about AI systems verifiable and reusable across borders, building on frameworks such as the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement.

The roundtable, themed "Toward an Asia-Pacific Community: Vision and Action", attracted about 300 representatives from China, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries and regions, reflecting a shared determination to advance regional integration and technological cooperation despite a challenging global environment.

"We attach great importance to the upcoming APEC meeting and have high expectations, and are willing to make our contributions to this end," Zhang noted.

Wu Weidi contributed to this story.

chenbowen@chinadaily.com.cn