APEC Leaders Week : Shenzen 2026

Shenzhen has built a reputation for moving fast. Once a fishing town, it became China’s first special economic zone and grew into a global tech hub. Now, with final preparations complete, the city is ready to welcome leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific economies for next week’s 33rd APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting.

The final Senior Officials’ Meeting takes place on November 14 and 15, and a meeting of the APEC Business Advisory Council will bring business views into the regional agenda. Trade, artificial intelligence and economic resilience are expected to dominate. APEC economies have been advancing cooperation on all three as the region navigates economic uncertainty and rapid technological change.

A showcase, and a message

Beijing’s choice of venue is deliberate. Analysts describe Shenzhen as a technology showroom for national power, where leaders will see products such as humanoid robots and emerging AI tools, rather than just presentations. The host’s theme is “Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together,” and Beijing is pitching the year as a response to rising anti-globalisation and trade protectionism.

That framing might be tested by the guest list.

The Washington question

The biggest unknown is the United States. After Xi invited him, Trump confirmed in late September that he would travel to China in November for the summit. If he shows up, he will reportedly be the first sitting US president to visit Guangdong, and a lame duck of historic proportions. There is also talk of a three-way meeting. Vladimir Putin has proposed meeting Trump and Xi to discuss Ukraine on the sidelines. The Kremlin has confirmed talks but said no agenda is set, while neither the US or China have confirmed any participation.  

For export economies, the headline bilaterals matter because they set the weather. The tone of US-China relations after Shenzhen will shape tariff settings, supply chains and the rules that smaller traders depend on. As much of the NZ media has pointed out,  Trump’s “America First” protectionism has shaken the rules-based system that smaller nations like New Zealand rely on.

New Zealand’s stake: the dairy dependency

Few APEC members have as much riding on Shenzhen’s trade agenda as New Zealand, and few are as exposed to its host.

The scale of the relationship is large. China accounts for more than 20% of New Zealand’s exports of goods and services. In the year to June 30, goods exports to China reached NZ$20 billion, up just over 4%, while two-way trade in goods and services rose to around NZ$43 billion.

The mix is highly concentrated. Food and beverage exports reached NZ$15.5 billion, more than three-quarters of New Zealand’s goods exports to China. Dairy alone rose 20% to NZ$10 billion, and New Zealand supplies 49% of China’s dairy imports by value. Meat, cheese and infant formula exports are all now over a billion dollars a year.  

That success is also a vulnerability. A market that takes this much of New Zealand’s dairy, and a large share of its meat and logs, leaves little room to absorb a policy shift, a tariff dispute or a change in Chinese demand. Even as volumes grow, the trade is becoming more selective. That is why APEC’s language on open markets, predictable rules and supply-chain resilience is regarded, from the Beehive, as commercial insurance as much as bilateral diplomacy.

What Beijing is asking for

Beijing has already signalled its priorities. On October 12, Premier Li Qiang spoke with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon by phone. According to the Chinese readout, Li urged both sides to expand the scale and improve the quality of goods trade, tap the potential of services trade, and widen cooperation in new energy vehicles, solar, and wind power.

It’s already clear that New Zealand wants to use next year’s 55th anniversary of diplomatic ties to strengthen high-level exchanges, and that it remains committed to the one-China policy.

One area of detail to be discussed is the so-called “services negative list” under the China-New Zealand FTA. It’s a way of structuring a trade agreement on services, where instead of listing the sectors a country agrees to open up, it opens everything by default and lists only the exceptions, with all services covered unless they appear on the list of restrictions. Each country sets out the sectors or measures it wants to keep protected, and for New Zealand, this would matter in sectors like education, tourism-related services, transport, and professional and digital services, where it could secure broader access to the Chinese market. For China, it fits a wider push to present itself as opening up, which nicely suits the APEC “openness” theme.

New Zealand’s export base is overwhelmingly goods, and a services-trade negative list is the kind of incremental deal that can be announced on a summit’s margins.

China is also pushing for cooperation in sectors it dominates, and which can sit  awkwardly alongside Wellington’s wider security conversations. At the 2024 APEC in Lima, Luxon said Xi raised China’s concerns about New Zealand’s possible involvement in AUKUS. Expect trade and security to be handled on separate tracks again, though probably in the same room.  

A delegation in limbo

Post-election there is still no official confirmation of who will represent New Zealand in Shenzhen, and the timing is awkward. Government formation under MMP can take weeks.

New Zealand has faced this problem before. In 2023, Luxon skipped APEC in San Francisco while coalition talks dragged on, and the caretaker trade minister represented the country instead. Its still not clear exactly how New Zealand will be represented at a Ministerial level at this year’s meeting.  

Whoever goes will have a full list of trade priorities. They include protecting the free-trade architecture, pressing on services access under the China agreement, and finding space for a conversation with Washington. Others will be competing for the same attention. Sustaining NZ’s place at the table, rather than winning a headline deal, may be the realistic goal, as the domestic political agenda continues to dominate the headlines.

Asia Media Centre 

Banner Image: The Shenzhen Bay Port sports APEC Summit 2026 banner. Photo: Wikpedia