The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference (APEC) was founded in 1989 as an informal dialog group with limited participation by ministers and cabinet-level officials in the Asian-Pacific region, and rose to world prominence in Seattle in 1993 when President Clinton endorsed the organization and used it for what is now an annual summit meeting of Asian and Pacific leaders. The group has since become the main vehicle for promoting open trade and economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.
In this image, Seattle APEC conference attendees stand in front of the press outside the conference facility. The Seattle event was actually in a Coast Salish-style long house on Blake Island, a state park in Puget Sound directly west of West Seattle. Once the site of camping grounds of the Suquamish tribe, Tillicum Village consists of a cedar-lined longhouse with a restaurant and performance area, a gift shop, and a 324-foot public pier. The village was built by a local caterer as a tourist attraction for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair to showcase Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples' arts, food, and culture.
Dignitaries at the Seattle conference included Jean Chrétien, prime minister of Canada; Suharto president of Indonesia; Goh Chok Tong, prime minister of Singapore; Fidel Ramos, president of the Philippines; Bill Clinton, president of the United States; Vincent Siew, Chairman of Economic Development for Taiwan; Morihiro Hosokawa, prime minister of Japan; Hamish Macleod, financial secretary for Hong Kong; Jiang Zemin, president of the People's Republic of China; Chuan Leekpai, prime minister of Thailand; Kim Young-sam, president of South Korea; James Bolger, prime minister of New Zealand; Hassanal Bokiah, Sultan of Brunei; and Paul Keating, Prime Minister of Australia. At the conference the attendees established an outline for APEC’s vision, “stability, security and prosperity for our peoples.”
Caption information sources: https://www.apec.org/About-Us/About-APEC/History; "President Clinton convenes APEC summit on Blake Island on November 20, 1993," by Walt Crowley, HistoryLink.org Essay 5333; and "Blake Island — Thumbnail History," by Daryl C. McClary, HistoryLink.org Essay 5491. Caption information source: The Seattle Times, "A Region's Leaders Catch Up To History - World's Most Integrated Economies Get Even Closer," November 21, 1993, p. A1; and "APEC is Growing After Small Beginning," November 15, 1998, p. A2. Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff.
