Backgrounder: China and APEC

DA NANG, Vietnam - The 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting is scheduled for Nov 10-11 in Vietnam's central port city of Da Nang.

President Xi Jinping will attend the meeting. China has played an important part in this forum, which was established in 1989 to facilitate economic cooperation among the currently 21 economies in the Asia-Pacific region.

China joined the group together with Hong Kong -- later called China's Hong Kong -- and Chinese Taipei in 1991 because APEC recognizes the "one-China" principle and respects the differences between sovereign states and regional economies.

APEC provides an important platform for China to conduct mutually beneficial cooperation with other member economies and actively carry out its multilateral diplomacy.

China's membership has boosted its own development and greatly contributed to regional and world economic integration progress.

China has actively participated in the wide-ranging cooperation within the APEC framework. Chinese presidents have attended all APEC economic leaders' meetings and the positive, balanced and rational proposals they made at those meetings have won wide acclaim.

Among the APEC summits, China has successfully held two -- one in Shanghai in 2001 and the other in Beijing in 2014.

Key documents endorsed by the Shanghai summit, including the APEC Economic Leaders' Declaration, the Shanghai Accord and the Action Agenda for the New Economy Challenge: Digital APEC Strategy, have boosted the ties between China and other members.

Two important documents were adopted at the Beijing summit, namely "The 22nd APEC Economic Leaders' Declaration: Beijing Agenda for an Integrated, Innovative and Interconnected Asia-Pacific" and the "Statement on the 25th Anniversary of APEC: Shaping the Future through Asia-Pacific Partnership."

At the Beijing summit, APEC leaders also made a blueprint envisaging enhanced physical, institutional and people-to-people connections by 2025. The members also agreed to start a joint strategic study on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), marking the official launch of the FTAAP process.

APEC member economies account for roughly 62 percent of China's foreign trade and more than 80 percent of the foreign direct investment in China. Both China and the rest of the region have benefited greatly from their cooperation.

During the past 26 years, China has played a constructive role in the APEC mechanism. In recent years, the Chinese government has actively enhanced cooperation with other members and the rest of the world to jointly tackle the challenges on the road to global economic recovery.