Eyes around the world are turning toward Beijing as avid preparations for the annual APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting are underway there. Hopes for productive summit outcomes have been heightened amid continuing regional doldrums.

At least two major elements contribute to these earnest hopes. For one, APEC is expected to contribute further toward socioeconomic development in the Asia-Pacific region. In the quarter century since the birth of APEC, its member economies have achieved enviable economic development, collectively now making up more than half of global GDP and trade.

Nevertheless, although APEC continues to shoulder its original aims of promoting free trade in the Asia-Pacific, many other free-trade initiatives in the region appear to have surpassed APEC's speed and magnitude.

As far back as the early 1990s, APEC members Canada, Mexico and the US signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In Southeast Asia, the member states of ASEAN, which are mostly also APEC members, have gone even further to arrive at an ASEAN Economic Community as soon as next year. They have even extended their free-trade mechanisms to other APEC members such as China, Japan and South Korea, and are in the midst of negotiating for an even more ambitious Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

On the other hand, negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which has its roots in APEC, are presently stalled.

APEC appears to have taken at most a cheerleading back-seat in all these free-trade developments, but it can actually play a more proactive role in this respect.

The other element which could have brought about special expectations on APEC is none other than the lofty views toward the summit host, China.

China's economy has grown by leaps and bounds since APEC's founding, becoming the world's second largest economy. China's relatively good performance, though tampered with pullbacks of its own, is by default the locomotive that pulls the regional economy along.

It thus comes with no surprise that there are heated expectations that China will make use of the APEC summit to propose and implement measures for further stimulating the regional economy under the APEC framework.

Backed up by China as a proactive host, APEC should consider strengthening and realizing at least two aspects of its otherwise crucial international role.

First, in terms of free trade, though endowed with initial good intentions, the TPP has seen its negotiations mired for some time. The heart of the problem lies in the fact that the TPP agenda has come to be dominated by the US, which as a powerful and longstanding developed nation does not command the trust and confidence of the many other negotiation participants that are still developing countries.

APEC, being in a sense the cradle of the TPP process, and coupled with the realistic collaboration of APEC members, should attempt to resume the mantle of steering the TPP negotiations. APEC's reputation of realistically accommodating the various peculiarities of its members should lend it an air of credibility which could hasten the renewed dynamism of the process.

At the very least, APEC should strive to harmonize various existing multilateral and bilateral free-trade agreements to enable the whole of the Asia-Pacific to truly enjoy the fruits of these initiatives.

The APEC business travel card, for example, could have its holder base carefully but steadily increased, so as to make travel within the region easier. This would also have the effect of further promoting the integration of service industry that has assumed increasingly prominent role in the regional economy.

Second, the picture-worthy hand-holding of the APEC leaders may also metastasize into concrete measures in tackling the various non-traditional but non-controversial threats in the region. Climate change, terrorism, epidemic, human and drugs trafficking and piracy are all transnational menaces that have ravaged the Asia-Pacific. Rooting them out requires sincere international cooperation, and APEC should push for early concerted efforts in addressing these concerns.

As China acts as a serious and adroit host to this year's APEC summit, especially in spelling out APEC's original aims in more concrete terms, a refreshed APEC could rightfully resume its noble role in revitalizing a staggering Asia-Pacific.

The author is a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn