Beijing plays host to this year’s APEC conference ( full form of APEC: Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ), with the leaders of 21 member countries from around the Pacific rim in attendance. The organisation was formed in 1989, originally including 12 APEC members. These included such major economies as the United States, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and a number of other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The number of APEC member countries steadily rose over the following years until reaching the current size in the late 1990s, after which no new APEC members have been inducted into the organisation.That could change within the foreseeable future. As the APEC member hosting the summit this year, China has had the privilege of inviting non-member countries to the APEC conference as observers.

Invitations were extended to the heads of Mongolia, Pakistan, and India, all of which are strategically important countries from China’s perspective. The leaders of Mongolia and Pakistan accepted the invitation, but India declined largely for political reasons. Prime Minister Modi is already spending a considerable amount of his time abroad, and another foreign trip might provoke domestic criticism.

Such criticism would be misplaced. The APEC is an important venue for some of the largest economies in the world to discuss the facilitation of trade and business across their borders. Albeit slow-moving – formal discussions for a free-trade agreement began 8 years ago and haven’t progressed far – the organisation still has the potential to open up new opportunities between some of the largest and fastest growing economies in the world. For that reason alone, India should actively seek to become a member country of the APEC, and attending the conference as an observer would have been a step in that direction.

While missing out on the APEC conference this time is unfortunate, the very fact that China invited Prime Minister Modi is a very positive development, suggesting that it may favour India joining the organisation as a member country. Although up till this point all member countries have had coastlines along the Pacific Ocean in Asia and the Americas, such a geographical detail ought not to prove an insurmountable hurdle, if the willingness is there on all sides.