God Knows Best: Apec Png 2018: My Way

By Lahui Ako and Dr Alan Bollard PhD LLD

Lahui Ako, a former diplomat, and PNG APEC Senior Official, recounts the complex, difficult, and sometimes treacherous path he faced in the world of multilateral diplomacy, both by himself, and his country, when it committed to host and chair APEC in 2018. He tells of the political barriers, the diplomatic innuendos, the financial hurdles, and the organizational complexity he encountered, from the planning phases in 2012, right up to being in the cross-fire of the nationalistic Trump officials, and China’s aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomats where hard choices had to be made in November, 2018. Ultimately, there wont be a consensus APEC 2018 Leaders’ Declaration, but Lahui and his team will acquit themselves well; simply, because, their God knows best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Apr 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781543773330

Lahui Ako

Lahui Ako is a retired Public Servant. He was Director-General of the PNG APEC Secretariat, and was the PNG APEC Senior Official in 2018. He joined the PNG public service in 1993 as a Registry Clerk in DFAT. He was Chair of the APEC FoTC on Urbanization, the BMC (2019), and was PNG’s rep to the AVG in 2019. He served as First Secretary at the PNG Embassy in Beijing, PRC from 2003-2007. Lahui holds a Master in Strategic Management (2011), from the UPNG, and a CAPM (No: 6822778). He has also written the following books: “Towards a PNG Foreign Policy White Paper (2022); “Nameless Warriors: The Ben Moide Story (2012); A Logohu in China (2007); and, “Upstream, through endless sands of blessings (2005). He is a “Honorary member” of the “PIB, NGIB, PIR Association” of Australia.

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GOD

KNOWS

BEST:

APEC PNG

2018:

MY WAY

LAHUI AKO

68301.png

Copyright © 2023 by Lahui Ako.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

For Nou Ako Jr, a.k.a. Chinny.

In the Almighty God’s perfect timing,

we await His miracle.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Acknowledgements

List Of Abbreviations

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Author’s Reflections

Honour List

Glossary

About the Author

FOREWORD

This is a unique book. In it, Lahui Ako, a senior Papua New Guinean official, now semi-retired, recounts the complex and difficult path his country faced when it committed to lead the economies of the Asia-Pacific region on a unique journey. This meant committing to take a turn to host and lead APEC, the largest regional trade organisation in the world. Many member economies did not think Papua New Guinea could do it. I was the APEC Executive Director at the time, and I, too, had my worries. But Lahui was determined to prove them all wrong.

He writes of the political barriers, the financial hurdles, and the organisational complexity, and he does it in a way that is unusually direct for a diplomat – he takes no prisoners. He does not spare himself. He travels a personal journey as well as a professional one, and we learn about his fears, health worries, and lack of confidence. It is faith in his country, his family, and his God that keeps him focused. He is an experienced author, and the pace never slows. There is enjoyment, angst, and surprise but above all authenticity. This is a man who tattooed his APEC goals on his arm to show his determination.

Trade and investment has helped raise living standards across the Asia-Pacific, and Papua New Guinea’s task was to keep this going in the face of the US and China’s mounting trade tensions. This book will intrigue and inform anyone interested in the way economies develop, and it is a unique view from the poorest country in the region.

Faced with these challenges, Lahui and his colleagues’ view was simply that they must try harder than any previous host. In 2018, Papua New Guinea organised over 200 APEC meetings and proposed a number of policy innovations, work that was led by Lahui. At the end of the year, the economic leaders landed in Port Moresby.

Lahui tells the story as the big power tensions spilled over. Caught in the crossfire between nationalistic Trump officials and China’s aggressive, ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats, Lahui had to make some hard choices. Ultimately, there would be no agreement between the big powers, but Papua New Guinea would acquit itself well.

What a story!

Prof. Alan Bollard

Wellington, New Zealand

11 October 2022

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Most of this book is based on my inputs into the diaries I kept from 2012 onwards. These were supported and complemented greatly by the outcomes reports and summaries of the APEC fora and sub-fora reports, including the book APEC at 20: Recall, Reflect, Remake. That book, published by ISEAS Publishing in 2009 and edited by K. Kesavapany and Hank Lim, included contributions by Andrew Elek, Peter Drysdale, Charles E. Morrison, Mignonne Man-jung Chan, Zhang Yunling, Shen Minghui, Hadi Soesastro, Ippei Yamazawa, Tommy Koh, Lee Tsao Yuan, and Arun Mahizhnan. They all provided the edge required for the background to this book. Charles Morrison and Andrew Elek I had the pleasure of meeting during the course of my time in APEC. I thank them all.

In saying so, I must thank Dr Alan Bollard for taking time out of his busy schedule to write the foreword for this work. His foreword truly summarises the journey we took from the inception of the team until that fateful day on Saturday, 7 December, 2019. In the same vein, I would like to thank Michael Chapnick of the APEC Secretariat in Singapore for putting me in touch with Scott Chernis of the US sometimes in November 2022. Scott gave his permission for me to use his November 2011 photograph. I hope it will add more value to this story.

I am very grateful to the continuous support and encouragement provided to this project by Amb. Ivan Pomaleu, OBE, Chief Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and National Executive Council (NEC); Clayton Harrington, Australian High Commission, Papua New Guinea (PNG); and Carlos Kuriyama of the APEC Secretariat in Singapore. It was gold. During the final editing process of this book in December, 2022, I was delighted to find out that he (Carlos) had been appointed as the Director of the APEC PSU, taking over from Dennis Hew. Both I got to know well during my time in the APEC circuit over the years. I wish both of them well in the upcoming chapters of their continuing illustrious careers. Commodore (rtd) Peter Ilau, and Frank Mizigi, a recently retired Foreign Service Officer also threw in their support and encouragements along the way.

Similarly, my faithful old team of the PNG APEC Secretariat, namely, Madam Jules, Marie-san, Senora H, Simon Yaukah, Steven Collin, Brendon Pulai, Rolynne Asik, and Charlie Wayar. Your faith and belief in me knows no bounds and continues to humble me. The amount of ideas we bounced off each other during the writing of this project would have filled up the whole APEC Rumana and more. I am forever indebted to you all.

My big brother and one of our elders of the Third Battalion Maj. David Tiki, Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF), deserves my heartfelt appreciation as well. When we visited Igam Barracks in 2018, he was there to receive us. His confirmation of the names of the officers who were there during that briefing session at the Engineers Battalion fulfilled some of the missing links of this story. Along the way, he has continued to encourage me to finish this story so that future generations must know of the missed opportunities, APEC PNG 2018 brought with it.

The APEC PNG 2018 journey also enabled me to reinforce my relationship with the security forces, and the PNGDF in particular. Colonels Siale Diro, Lari Opa, Wenzel Esekia, and Boniface Aruma, then Majors Donald Aisuk, Lieutenants Meauri and James Vogae, and the RPNGC’s Naua Vanuawaru, all rank high up there with my gratitude. I hereby, acknowledge and repay them that respect they all showed me. I can only hope that in this life, I can make up for the remainder of that debt.

The final eighteen months of this exercise would not have been completed successfully if not for these proofreaders: Eileen Aitsi, Isidore Sitapai Pasanai, and Robin Suang. Also original members of the PNGAS, they were the mainstay of this project and slowly nudged it forwards towards its successful completion today. I cannot thank you enough.

To the Akos of Nese Heights, truly God continues to watch over us. Let us all continue to be vigilant from here on, so that we continue to be of service to Him in the community, and to everyone we come into contact with.

Finally, I thank my backbone in all my endeavours and the love of my life, Daera Dorothy Ako, without whom my life would be aimless. With all my love forever.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see.

—Hebrew 11:1

INTRODUCTION

Honiara, Solomon Islands, July 2012: I led the PNG delegation to one of the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) meetings in my capacity as the acting director general of the Economic Development Cooperation (EDC) Division at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It was another stifling day in the equatorial heat of the Pacific Islands. However, atop the hill, overlooking the sprawling urban centre of the Solomon Islands, I was seated amidst technical experts from the forum island countries in a meeting that was as informal as could be in the Pacific. The main topic of discussion was fish, and the particular type of fish; tuna. I thought that the idyllic setting of this Pacific Islands paradise would provide me the perfect launch pad to determine the next course of my life’s journey.

People often ask me when it was that I made up my mind to go up against the grain, to do something that was outright impossible to achieve. Well, there was no exact moment, but the impending return from diplomatic posting of some very senior officers and the plight of my vision-impaired little son, who became my foremost priority from the very moment he was diagnosed with this disability, pushed me in the opposite direction. The fact that two very senior officers from the Department of the Prime Minister and National Executive Council (PMNEC), with the concurrence of the chief secretary, had gone all the way to the very top to obtain the prime minister’s blessings to appoint me as the head of the soon-to-be-formed PNG APEC secretariat was also not lost on me. I saw this as a vote of confidence from qualified persons outside the safety zone of the PNG foreign service machinery.

In Honiara, the uppermost thing on my mind was the fact that I wanted to soar on my own and fly in the direction I wanted. To stay on in a somewhat very conservative government organisation, still determined on living in its past glories, was not my intention. After all, I, and others like me, had had no part in those achievements. I also sensed the determination in my ever-cautious superior officers not to muddy the clear waters they enjoyed splashing about in. (Or maybe they saw me as unqualified to handle such a highly complex and very high-profile national foreign policy undertaking, which they themselves had already qualified as impossible to attain.) I returned from Honiara that day with my mind made up, ready to pack up and move up the road to the seemingly hallowed grounds of the Morauta Haus.

So exactly two days after my return from Honiara, I left the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) quietly and without any fanfare after a solid nineteen years and five months of dedicated service, which included a very enriching diplomatic posting in the Middle Kingdom. A member of the senior management team made a half-hearted attempt to dissuade my intentions, assuring me that another diplomatic posting soon would guarantee solutions to my ongoing work and family concerns. I respectfully declined his offer but thanked him for his consideration. I needed to do this, I told him. He smiled and wished me luck.

It was pure instinct and the ever-present hand of the Almighty God that drove me out of this safety zone into the unknown world of strategic management and planning and high-end multilateral diplomacy. This was combined with my determination to make something different out of the scenario and foregone conclusion, which my highly experienced and decorated foreign service colleagues were already singing into my inexperienced ears. But then it was me, and not them, who was continuously in the receiving end of the ‘free-riding’ intimations at the Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOMs).

I do not regard myself as overly ambitious. I know that people would say that I must be; otherwise, I would not have commanded Papua New Guinea’s frontline onslaught in the APEC 2018 policy configuration as its APEC senior official. I don’t believe I am ambitious in a selfish sense. If I had been, I would have been cautious and would not have risked my whole career as a budding foreign service officer (FSO) just to go barking up a very high and wrong tree. I was already into my first forages in the middle management of the PNG foreign service. Some would say I had the world by the fingertips. The last time I looked at my fingertips, they were full of grime and dust from the toil and drudgery of labouring in an organisation that had no strategic intention in the world.

We had been branded ‘free riders’ in the APEC process. I was determined to change that perspective. But was I so confident that I was going to pull off this mammoth task of hosting APEC soon? I certainly was not. The pecking order above me decreed that I go up the ladder step by step to bring this idea into fruition. Fortunately for me, there were already those high above outside this pecking order who, unbeknown to me, for whatever their reasons, supported this idea and ensured that it went ahead.

I also knew for sure that God had my back and that if He was exposing me out there against this seemingly impossible task, He had a reason. Who was I, a mere human, to doubt His blessing and directions in my life? Of course, my actions were not a complete gamble, but I knew it was a very risky undertaking after being employed in this one organisation straight out of school. Some of my mates in the foreign service, upon hearing about my move, looked at me as if I was going to the moon.

It was all unknown territory for me from here on. Daera and I had discussed this, and she had encouraged me to take on this challenge. So I embarked on it because hers was the only earthly support I required. I also remembered thinking, If this doesn’t go well for me, bugger it, I can leave the public service and go look for something under the sun because God wills it!

I fronted up at Morauta Haus that morning in August 2012 and was granted an immediate private audience with the chief secretary, the venerable (late) Sir Manasupe Zurenuoc. We connected immediately after he found out I had grown up at the defence academy in Lae in the Morobe Province. The chief himself was from the Finschhafen district of the same province.

The first thing he asked me that day, in fluent pidgin, after welcoming me to the department was, ‘Ako, can we really do this?’

I looked him straight in the eyes and responded fluently in the same vernacular, ‘If God wills it, it is nothing, sir. It is already a done deal. We just have to go through the challenges to reach it!’

‘Good’, he concurred, a hint of smile on his face, most probably amused at the fluency of the pidgin uttered by this Motuan. The chief himself came from missionary stock as well, his parents being Lutheran missionaries.

‘Do we have a plan?’ he continued in pidgin.

‘Yes, sir, we do. We have a 1,077-page operations plan.’ I nodded confidently back.

‘OK, great! Get to it then and make it happen for the eight million Papua New Guineans.’

I had passed his impromptu language proficiency test.

Chief Secretary Sir Manasupe Zurenuoc passed away sadly on 6 March 2017 due to ill health. On the evening of that particular historically significant Sunday, 18 November 2018, as I drove home from Era Kone APEC PNG 2018, all done and dusted, my thoughts went back to this majestic and humble man, and I shed a few tears in his memory in the quietness of the car, looking out over the horizon at the setting sun in the Port Moresby Harbour. He had allowed me free rein in the implementation of my operations plan. This very action had laid the foundation of success in the policy area that followed soon after.

APEC’s policy process guides its hosting year. Logistics and security arrangement are a very small but equally crucial part of this process. But both are irrelevant without the substance of the policy process.

Whether or not APEC 2018 may very well have ended my dreams for higher offices in the public service, you be the judge of that. To me, it did the opposite. From that vintage point, I think it exposed me and laid the foundations on which I would build another family-enriching career out in the world.

I’d taken a big gamble, based on my steadfast trust and belief in God, and got away with it. As Stephen E. Ambrose (1990) said, ‘Someone had to give the bureaucracies directions; someone had to be able to call in all the information they gathered; make sense out of it, and impose order on it; someone had to make certain that each part meshed into the whole; someone had to decide; someone had to take responsibility and act.’ I unwittingly became that someone.

Looking back, APEC 2018 was Papua New Guinea’s biggest-ever foreign policy exercise, and I was sitting in that plane as first officer with ambassador Ivan Pomaleu as the captain. Yes, towards the end, it was indeed ambitious to think that little PNG could referee the US and China in their trade war by ‘the rules’ of the APEC game. We found out the hard way that year and, to the ordinary eyes of the world, lost.

However, my God is such an awesome God; He doesn’t forsake those who call on Him for help nor those whom He has earmarked to carry out activities He has ordained for success. As such, my triumph would come the following year where, exactly seventy-eight years to the day, when little yellow men from the Land of the Rising Sun surprised the might of the US at Pearl, so too would little black men from the Land of the Unexpected surprise and hold the seven developed and thirteen developing member economies of APEC to account, if only to safeguard and maintain the integrity and honesty of the APEC process and thereby bring its APEC 2018 host year to a fruitful close – all these to the rousing applause of my ancestors, whose pride had been dented during that melee at Era Kone on Sunday, 18 November 2018, but most of all to the nameless ones of Oakley, whose hopes I carried that fateful Saturday afternoon at that foreign playing field up on Singapore’s Heng Mui Keng Terrace.

I have always enjoyed risk-taking, especially in the sense of thinking on my feet and having to trust my God-given instincts under pressure. For this, I have never for once stopped thanking the God of hosts for endowing me with the knowledge of thinking out and processing problems and coming up with handful of solutions, as well as the practicability of planning out the activities towards achieving these objectives. These have come to me as second nature. My cup has never stopped overflowing in this regard. That was, and continues to be, the only blessing I have and will continue to crave from my God – the Master Strategist, Planner, and Project Manager – and in the same token share and pass on to those willing to accept my free offering of advice and help.

I believe that my past years of playing, and later, coaching and managing rugby teams (both codes), be it at the village or premier grade levels, had prepared me well with the appropriate organisational ability, energy, competitiveness, enthusiasm, and optimism, in addition to willingness, to work hard at a task that was similarly intriguing and fascinating. I’d like to think that the bonus to this challenge was the fact that it brought out the best in all members of the teams I led to work with the materials we had, instead of hoping for what we didn’t have.

I have also taken pride in telling it as it is, however unpalatable. In my role as the director general of the PNG APEC Secretariat (PNGAS) and during most instances as Papua New Guinea’s APEC Senior Official for our 2018 host year, this trait sometimes caused tensions within the Committee on APEC Policy Issues (CAPI) at our regular briefing sessions. I saw it as my duty to bring in straggling agencies and departments which were not rowing hard enough or were just there hoping for others to row for them during the ride to row together as a team - for Team PNG. My game plan had to be implemented according to its intended purpose simply because the eight million people of this great nation of ours deserved it and therefore relied on its successful implementation, period. It was not my intention to allow this ship to sink just because some of the rowers, who could powerfully row on any given day, had suddenly become lazy. Fortunately, ambassador Ivan Pomaleu, that complete epitome of a diplomat and chair of the CAPI, always righted these ill feelings for overall team harmony.

The late ambassador Matt Matthews, the US APEC Senior Official, during his farewell speech at the end of SOM1 in Santiago, Chile, summed up ambassador Pomaleu’s character very well when he said, ‘. . . I can’t imagine how a man who modelled dignity, compassion, and considerateness, better than Ivan . . ."’ Rightly so too. (Ambassador Matthews sadly passed away on Thursday, 21 May 2020.)

Of course, much of the credit of our successful policy undertaking for APEC 2018 lies in the guiding hands of the majestic ambassador Ivan Pomaleu, who, as SOM Chair of APEC 2018, steered the seven developed and thirteen developing member economies of APEC, along the intended pathway of our overall theme and policy priorities. Ambassador Pomaleu was a godsend to the team. I was happily satisfied to be his battlefield commander. I also had four courageous lieutenants, all tried and proven in the five years leading up to APEC 2018, who led the three main policy thrusts, composing of teams of hard-hitting officers from right across the public service spectrum. They had helped me carefully select, and later train, for this adventure. Of these, the quietly spoken Rob was the only one I ‘poached’ from another department, with the full blessing of the chief. While Hera was ‘interviewed’ while on post, by the chief himself, and ‘encouraged’ to return home. Ours was a fully competent organisation.

While this book talks about my coming of age, it is also about those unsung heroes and nameless warriors who ran in the CAPI. It is about the steadfastness of the young members of the PNGAS, who successfully reined in all the agencies and departments, all zealously guarding their fiefs under one single objective: to ensure that Papua New Guinea’s policy obligations in APEC bear fruits.

This is also a story about how I fought my way through the quagmire of sometimes outright insults by certain very senior members of the PNG foreign service and triumphed, about how they thought I was ‘stepping on their toes’ when I advanced Papua New Guinea’s foreign policy aspirations through APEC’s multilateral terrains. Finally, this story is about how those tasked with managing our foreign policy aspirations completely missed Papua New Guinea’s biggest-ever foreign policy exercise big time, despite it being conducted right under their very noses, all because they spent a good deal of their time trying to second-guess or outguess my every move and to get rid of me as head of the PNG APEC Secretariat without even trying to carry out their own tasks or to work with me to support this national aspiration.

I waged vociferous running battles with certain members of the CAPI who were determined to advance their claim on the fact that any foreign policy initiative lay in their domain and rightly so too. On two occasions, they tried to muzzle me at the highest level without success; and all throughout the duration of our preparatory years, right up to the end of our APEC hosting, I kept a detailed daily journal, which now forms the bulk of this book. If only they had countered my policy proposals with alternative policy initiatives, of which I knew they had a very good many, APEC 2018 would have been conducted from its traditional abode. Of the 139 policy papers – initiatives, presentations, proposals, and reports – contributed by PNG as part of its overall policy engagements during its APEC host year, none sadly came from this government organisation.

In my role as the director general of the PNGAS and later as the 2018 PNG APEC Senior Official, I was privileged to have accompanied the foreign minister to all his bilateral engagements on the margins of the Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) and APEC Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) between 2013 and 2017 and, barring APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting (AELM) 2017 and 2018, was an integral part of Prime Minister O’Neill’s bilateral engagements in all the other years, except in Lima, Peru, in 2016, where I was the PNG Liaison Officer (LO) for his delegation. I was not part of the foreign minister’s bilateral team in 2018 simply because I was ‘honoured’ by ambassador Pomaleu to sit up front with the chair as the chair’s assistant. This I did during the MRT and AMM, which were chaired by the foreign minister.

Then in November 2018, on home soil, ambassador Pomaleu assigned me as Prime Minister O’Neill’s designated ‘runner’, and I ran for PNG tirelessly for the duration of the AELM that day from one APEC foreign minister to the other, with the full blessing of my Prime Minister, seeking consensus and general agreement on paragraphs 9, 16, and 17 of the 29-paragraph APEC Leaders’ Era Kone Declaration. The trade blowout between the US and China didn’t help. But I persisted. While the US eventually agreed to support the consensus, China didn’t budge. In the end, Prime Minister O’Neill had no choice but to omit those three ‘offending’ paragraphs from the overall text and release the Chair’s Era Kone Statement. Still, a declaration without the erring paragraphs would have been another great option too.

But God willed it that way that day because He still had an answer to the prayers of His servants, and the ways of our Almighty God remain mysterious to us mere humans for all eternity. None of these economies ever foresaw what would eventuate a year later in December 2019. If PNG had been allowed a declaration on 18 November 2018, PNG would have joined the consensus and allowed this precedence to continue. Then what happened at the APEC Secretariat in Singapore that day in December 2019 would not have happened.

But my God saw it differently. He saw the rivers of tears that flowed out of Oakley that fateful afternoon on Sunday, 18 November 2018 – as the deadline came to pass and I reported to ambassador Pomaleu, my voice breaking with emotion, that one particular economy continued to maintain its stance outside the general consensus – and felt pity on us. What came to pass that fateful day on Saturday, 7 December 2019, was simply part of God’s overall plans in our respective lives. We had committed APEC PNG 2018 into His hands years earlier, and on Sunday, 25 November 2018, a week after the completion of our hosting responsibilities, we gave thanks and celebrated its successful completion with a thanksgiving service at the Poreporena Lahara United Church, atop the historic Metoreia Hill in Hanuabada Village.

I have served during a fascinating period of Papua New Guinea’s history. My career far exceeded the expectations that I held as a young, up-and-coming foreign service officer who wanted to discover the eagle in him. As the Director-General of the PNGAS, I had plied my trade from Russia (2012) to Indonesia (2013) and then China (2014), the Philippines (2015), Peru (2016), and Vietnam (2017) before returning to the play in front of my own people in 2018. I had been in the APEC circuit since 2008 through divine intervention so had had the opportunity to observe how Singapore (2009), Japan (2010), and the US (2011) hosted in the lead up to the Russian year, where we got down to the serious business of giving thought to hosting.

My late dad, retired Reverend Ray Lahui-Ako of the United Church of PNG and one of the first four PNGDF indigenous chaplains to take over the chaplaincy from the departing Australian army in 1976, had ongoing health issues in the years leading up to 2018. In 2018, his health suddenly took a downward spiral as the prostate cancer commenced its final dreadful drive in his life. But Dad held out, his undying faith in his God the mainstay; he held on with Mum’s continuous urging, fearful of disturbing and spoiling the finale of what we, as a family, had been collectively preparing and praying for these past five years. He held on, with mum ever-present, by him. Dad was my rock throughout the preparatory years. His counsel while I fought my running battles was made of gold. He led me from the back.

On Sunday, 18 November 2018, from ten in the morning, as he and Mum watched live on TV all that was happening at the APEC Haus, they both held a prayer vigil when they learnt of the impasse as I ran valiantly back and forth through the US tornado and Chinese typhoon. When I returned home that night and slowly walked up the stairs, full of emotions, into the waiting embraces of the womenfolk of my household, Dad was resting. But I knew he was aware of my presence and our collective triumph that day.

Dad passed away peacefully at home in the early hours of Saturday, 8 December 2018, twenty days after watching all our preparations come to successful fruition and seeing his prayers answered by God. I was already in Australia, en route to Santiago, Chile, for the start of Chile’s APEC host year. I turned around quickly and returned, knowing that this particular chapter in my life was nearing its end, while another one got ready to be written.

Exactly a year later, in the early hours of that Sunday, 8 December 2019, right on the hour of his passing and in the quietness of that Singaporean hotel room, I sat down cross-legged on its carpeted floor, facing the designated direction as Motuan tradition decreed when mourning the dead. As befitting a dutiful Motu-Koitabuan son, I began to properly mourn the passing of my father. As I lamented his passing, I recounted to him what had transpired at the Heng Mui Keng Terrace the previous day and of how all that we both had worked hard for in upholding the family and tribe’s honour and the national interest had finally come to pass as ordained by God Almighty. His calming presence filled the room that hour. Then after thoroughly cleansing the past from my being, I left for Langkawi, Malaysia, the very next day, prepared to commence the rebuilding process. This I did with a victory dance during the SOM Welcome Dinner, and then to pay homage to my Malaysian host, I took my place among the band members, and played for them. The following day, during the Symposium, and the ensuing Plenary process, amidst the silent and furtive stares of all those who had been told off in Singapore for trying to derail the APEC process, I started to determine the best possible and suitable pathway PNG could take in its endeavours to ensure that the benefits of the 2018 APEC Leaders’ Chair’s Era Kone Statement could be rolled out throughout the length and breadth of my country.

But it has been all along my belief in God Almighty that has blessed me richly with the brave and courageous men and women of the PNGAS, the CAPI, the APEC 2018 SOM Chair’s Office, and APEC colleagues around the APEC region. Lifelong friendships have been forged during this journey. In doing so, I also genuflect and pay homage to the following champions who, as Papua New Guinea’s APEC senior officials in their respective times right up to 2013, tried valiantly to steer this huge ship without the required and necessary support I enjoyed: Amb. Max Rai, former PNG ambassador to China; HE Veali Vagi, former foreign secretary and Papua New Guinea’s high commissioner to Malaysia; Mr Leonard Louma, former acting secretary for Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT); HE Peter Eafeare, former PNG high commissioner to Fiji and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF); Mr Elias Wohengu (later to be foreign secretary from 2022); John Emilio, senior DFAT official; and Dr Henry Ivarature. They all sat in that chair and dreamt of what could be. I only ran the final leg of the journey they had started ever since that day on Blake Island in 1993. Mine was the shortest of all journeys compared to what they had to endure. I remain indebted to you all for this humble experience.

To the Nameless warriors of Oakley House, it has been my most humble privilege to have led you on this roller-coaster ride, where I revelled in the fun, laughter, and banter and thoroughly enjoyed our regular lunches at Oakley, where we sat down together at the same table as a family, irrespective of rank, with you all looking up to me as your elder brother and me looking at you all with nothing but pride in my heart. I pay tribute to your overall sense of commitment to the main objective of our job through thick and thin. There can be no better feeling than to know that you all had my back and I yours during this ride. This book is dedicated to you all.

A man is measured by his courage, his devotion to family, and his willingness to recognise and grab his destiny. If he misses the opportunity to do so, he threatens the very livelihood of his family.

—Rev. Ray Lahui-Ako (1944–2018)

PROLOGUE

Big Sky, Montana, May 2011 – ‘I must urge all economies to consider their options in hosting APEC, going beyond 2013. Because as it stands today, we only have Russia next year and Indonesia, in 2013, confirmed as hosts. Beyond that, the future looks bleak for APEC,’ said Kurt Tong, the US APEC senior official, as he pleaded to his APEC colleagues during the SOM working lunch. None of the senior officials budged. The acting Papua New Guinea (PNG) APEC Senior Official, who was seated at the same table with a number of senior officials from Asia during that luncheon, also looked on straight-faced.

During the ensuing discussions over lunch, one of the senior officials had spoken as an afterthought. ‘It’s true what Kurt is saying,’ he said, echoing the US senior official’s plea, whether deliberately to the Papua New Guinean or in general for the benefit of those seated at the same luncheon table. ‘When you come to think of it, economies who are yet to host an APEC year are actually free-riding on the back of those who, as a result of what Tong has just said, will now have to host APEC again.’

‘Hmm, I don’t know about that, sir. It’s voluntary, this hosting business. It has to be done properly and in accordance with the spirit of APEC. No one is obliged to host a second time around, and no one should be coerced, however subtly, into hosting, unless he has the necessary backup to do so. Substance and quality of hosting must be maintained. But again, as a family of economies pulling in the same direction, I am also of the conviction that the onus lies on those who are yet to host APEC to start thinking seriously about doing so in the immediate future and for those who have hosted to also consider assisting these new, incoming hosts with capacity and funding. After all, we are a cooperation. And in a cooperation, there are always two sides to the coin, so to speak,’ said the Papua New Guinean in his economy’s defence.

As he uttered these words, a thought suddenly entered his brain, which was already on overdrive ever since the luncheon commenced, while his colleague senior officials looked at him unconvincingly. We have to host this gathering somehow. I truly don’t know how, but it must happen, or else we will never hear the end of this chide remarks, and if it doesn’t happen, the prime minister must be informed of this inability so that he can make a decision on whether or not PNG should continue its engagement in this very important regional body.

That evening as the three-man PNG delegation got together for dinner, there was an unlikely air of seriousness tinged with sadness among the trio. The acting PNG APEC Senior Official had already told his two colleagues about what had transpired at lunch. Being ardent patriots, they, too, were feeling the pinch on whether to do or not to do.

While they ate, the acting PNG APEC Senior Official again lamented the events of the day to the other two Papua New Guineans, one a lawyer and the other a colleague foreign service officer. They ate quietly.

‘Well, come to think of it, it’s high time we start making some commitment on hosting. I mean, look! We have been a member since – when? – 1993? And what have we achieved since then, eh? Nothing, if you ask me!’ the senior lawyer with the Department of Justice and Attorney General (DJAG) said, breaking the Montana ice.

‘True. But you both do realise that we don’t have the required and necessary infrastructure, and facilities to host such a mammoth gathering of officials, including ministers and leaders for a whole year. Some of them are very influential members of the G8,’ the foreign service officer countered. ‘But I agree. We must host sooner than later.’

This very short burst of energetic conversation immediately lulled into a sudden space of quietness as the three looked down on their plates and concentrated on the morsel of food that had suddenly become cold and inedible. Then suddenly, the acting PNG APEC Senior Official spoke. ‘I agree. OK, bugger all. Let’s do this because if we don’t, who will? After all, it’s been eighteen years now, and we have not uttered a single word about hosting. For goodness’ sake, economies are already hinting at our incapacity to do so. We cannot continue like this. Let’s talk on dates now.’

‘Well, 2014 is out of the question because it’s just not possible for us to build anything in time,’ said the lawyer. ‘And 2015 is also not possible because we will be hosting the Pacific Games, and no delegate sleeps in sporting stadiums.’

‘What about 2016?’ asked the acting PNG APEC Senior Official.

‘Not good’, retorted the lawyer.

‘Why?’ the foreign service officer countered.

‘I don’t know. It just doesn’t add up to our aspirations,’ replied the lawyer.

The other two looked on as if holding their breath for the lawyer to continue. ‘Well, what year is good for you then?’ his two colleagues asked, this time with a hint of sarcasm.

He didn’t answer.

‘2017 is out of the question because our national election is on that year. How about 2018 then?’ the acting PNG APEC Senior Official asked.

‘Lock it in,’ the lawyer responded.

‘Right?’ he asked the foreign service officer.

They ordered the first round of their drinks. As soon as the waiter had delivered them and left, they clinked their glasses and lifted them to their lips with glints in their eyes, and the sombre air around them suddenly changed to one of optimism.

After another few more rounds of the same, the trio had had enough. They paid for the service and walked out of the restaurant back to their abodes. Walking out into the cool calm of the huge Montana sky, the tangy smell of the snow that covered the Big Sky Resort high up in the mountains of the Treasure State suddenly refreshed and energised their drive to host. They walked on with a dance to their steps, each in their own thought but the same thought of hosting APEC and the privilege of being regarded as an equal partner at last. Not one of them worried about the work that would be involved in the actual task of hosting. They believed, each in their own way, that God would decide that for them.

On their way, they met an Australian colleague, a good mate of theirs. The Australian was standing outside in the cool of the evening, trying to make a call home. As the three Papua New Guineans neared him, the acting PNG APEC Senior Official was the first to greet him. ‘How goes it, bro?’

‘Not too bad, mate. Actually, I have been trying to contact home for the last ten minutes and can’t seem to get through.’

The three Papua New Guineans shrugged and smiled in unison.

‘Hey, when is PNG hosting APEC?’ the Australian asked as an afterthought as if the winds of this sudden change in APEC’s history had suddenly flown into his being.

‘2018!’ responded the three Papua New Guineans in unison, gaiety in their voices, leaving the Australian with an astounding look on his face as to where that date had suddenly sprung from. The three Papua New Guineans walked on.

And so was born the vision. As befitting the regional geopolitics of the day, two historically connected bilateral partners had shared this undertaking between them first up and unknowingly.

The following evening, the US hosted the traditional ‘skit night’. The Papua New Guineans celebrated their unofficial announcement to host APEC (in 2018) and dazzled their cheering APEC colleagues with their air guitars and their own version of the Eagles hit song ‘Take It Easy’ and how and where the Bogor Goals could be driven. The economies that made up this crowd never for once felt the air in the room change to one of optimism, positivity, hopefulness, and confidence as the three Papua New Guineans commenced the chant and made the call to the bung, a call that would travel from the cold mountains of Big Sky, Montana, right down the mighty Rockies to the West Coast and across the vast Pacific ocean, right into the heart and spirit of the valleys, the mountains, rivers, beaches, villages, and cities that made up this smallest and least developed of APEC’s member economies.

The acting PNG APEC Senior Official went one step further; he brought the chant right up into the heart of his household in the large Motu-Koitabuan village of Hanuabada, where he called on his forefathers of old – most who had gone on the hazardous and famous Hiri trade to the west of Papua – for their strength, guidance, and perseverance in what was going to be the Asia-Pacific region’s modern version of the Hiri. But most important of all, he submitted this undertaking into the hands of God Almighty for his overall blessing and guidance, calling on His wisdom, knowledge, strength, courage, and perseverance to chart the correct course for this particular lagatoi he felt he would be entrusted with to sail as the badi tauna.

Being an avid reader of history himself, he also knew that this was his only chance of going on this modern-day Hiri. Grabbing this God-given opportunity with both hands, he stepped forward to be counted, armed with only a prayer and a plan. As he did so, he remembered his father saying, ‘For a man is measured by his courage, his devotion to family, and his willingness to grab his destiny.’

The die had been cast!

CHAPTER 1

I had returned from China that December 2007 after completing a four-and-a-half-year diplomatic posting as First Secretary at the PNG Embassy in Beijing. Between December 2007 and February 2008, I busied myself training and pushing my 40-year-old body to achieve some level of fitness to be on par with the rest of the 20-something year-olds who were, by then, preparing for their upcoming rugby tour of Port Moresby. This was a tour I had organised the previous year with the commander of the PNGDF, Cdre Peter Ilau, purposely to support and complement his Commander’s Cup (rugby tens) concept, which was already into its eighth year. Born out of dissent and discord in an organisation that was reeling from the Bougainville crisis, the Moem mutiny, and years of financial constraints, Ilau’s Commander’s Cup concept was the ointment he used on this festering sore to bind his organisation together as a single mechanism when he took command of the PNGDF in 2002. The tour was set to take place in April with two scheduled games: the first against the PNGDF-combine rugby team and the second, and last, against a Port Moresby rugby union selected side.

So I arrived back into sunny Port Moresby after a truly vigorous but enriching diplomatic posting in the Middle Kingdom, one which I thoroughly enjoyed under the guidance, tutelage, and mentorship of one of Papua New Guinea’s finest and seasoned diplomats, Amb. Max Rai.¹ Port Moresby, as usual that December, was blistering hot, making my feeble attempts at training, especially road runs, a heated affair. But I persevered and made light of the temperature – the Beijing Brothers RFC were coming to Port Moresby, and I was going to be an integral part of this whole tour. I had no intentions of sitting out this tour watching from the sidelines because of my inability to play due to my fitness or lack of it.

One day back in December 2006, a couple of the Pacific Islands students studying in Beijing – namely, Tupou ‘Pou’ Vaipulu, Saimone Lavakei’aho, Thomas Kugam, and a former Chinese rugby international Chen Changping – had approached me with a proposal. ‘Mr Ako,’ they had said, ‘we have a lot of Pacific Islands boys studying in Beijing at the moment. There are also quite a number of former Chinese national rugby players who want to play rugby but for want of a suitable club. A couple of us were thinking of the possibility of putting up a rugby team into the local Beijing Cup competition. What do you think?’

Of course, being a rugby fan, the answer was obvious. I concurred. Without even thinking how it was going to work out, I agreed to the proposal. But I guess that is just my nature. After all, I have continued, and will always continue, to leave the running of my life in God’s hands. If I cook up a plan – and I have cooked up a lot in the past decade or so – and if it is not in my or the collective interest of the concerning group, God will not allow it to run its full course, period. Then I will know, even after praying fervently for its success, that it was not to be.

By then, I had been in Beijing for four years and, out of boredom, had earlier on, in 2005, accepted the invitation by the Fijian diplomats whom I shared the Tayuan Diplomatic Office Building with to join the Beijing devils Rugby Club and try my hand out in rugby union. The Beijing devils – under the presidency of Englishman Simon Drakeford, supported by American Chris Edwards, Australian Andrew Webb, Canadian Collin Brown, and others – were heavily involved in promoting the code of rugby in China and Beijing in particular. James Holder and others did the same in Shanghai. Nearly all the Pacific Islands students were playing for the student-dominated team, called the Aardvarks Rugby Club. Rugby in Beijing was in for exciting times. The devils, made up of mostly expats living and working in Beijing, was obviously the dominant club and still is.

So was born the Beijing Xiongdi (Brothers) Rugby Club; a club consisting of Papua New Guineans, Tongans, Samoans, Fijians, Ni-Vanuatuans, Micronesians, and a smattering of European and South American students studying in Beijing then, including Norwegian rocker Babak Ziai, who could run like the wind. I was entrusted to look after these students. Liza Gabina provided the additional backup, while the Ako household, at the Tayuan Diplomatic Compound, exploded with never-ending fun, banter, and laughter when these students congregated to plan for the next game or just to share a yarn the Pacific way. (Lisa sadly passed away in 2020.)

The birth of this club in Beijing rugby was aided by the arrival into China of a Papua New Guinean by the name of Isikeli ‘Keli’ Taureka. Keli, as he preferred to be called, had been transferred by his employer, Chevron, the American multinational energy corporation, to head up its China operations in Beijing as president of Chevron Texaco China Energy Company.

The students had visited me at the embassy a week before Keli requested for an appointment to pay a courtesy call on Ambassador Rai. So Keli arrived at the embassy, and he made his respects to the ambassador. This was towards the end of November 2006. By then, it was approaching the festive season, and ambassador Rai was hosting a pre-Christmas bung at the embassy. I had the invites sent out, and all Papua New Guineans who were known to be in Beijing on that day were invited to the ambassador’s residence for this bung. Keli was invited too. As he likes to say when we talk about the birth of the Chevron Beijing Brothers Rugby Union Club in 2007, ‘I was cornered by this group of young, vibrant Pacific Islanders wanting to keep their cultural bonding together through the sports of rugby. How could I refuse such a noble venture?’

The 2007 Beijing rugby competition was the Xiongdi’s first-ever season in competitive rugby. Together with Chen Changping and a group of former Chinese rugby internationals who loved their rugby, such as Sechiang Ma, Leo Li, Niu Jian, Gao Xuetong, and others, these boys formed the foundation on which the Pacific Islands bond could be built to advance people-to-people relations, mutual connections, networks, and beyond in this most ancient of countries in the world.

After that first competition match against the devils in which we were sorely beaten, Keli summed the outcome up very well that first day at the field when he said, ‘The game you played today was very pathetic and unbecoming of Pacific Islanders and their prowess in the sport of rugby. Train hard and play hard next time.’ We ended up with the wooden spoon that year, but little did we all know that a few years down the road, in 2009, the Xiongdi would win the Beijing icebreaker rugby tens (which is the preseason tournament before the official kick-off of the competition) and would then go on to win the prized 2009 Beijing Cup as the premier Beijing rugby club for that year.

I left China in December 2007, and in the decade that followed, the club had its ups and downs but would continue to persevere in Beijing, owing to the loyalty and commitment of those hardcore Pacific Islands students who continued to stream into Beijing in search of a better education under the Chinese government scholarship scheme and others. These students never gave up on the club and continued to nurture it; students such as Henry Aisi; Mozart Kaiulo; my own daughters Momo-Carol Kavani Ako and Boni Ako; Chen Changping; Pou; and others would continue to hold it all together. What these students didn’t realise was that they were, and are, learning on the job to hone their general management skills with the administration of the club. That these skills would go a long way in having a positive effect