(PRC) had joined, along with Taiwan and Hong Kong. Mexico and Papua New Guinea joined in 1993, and Chile in 1994 (Morrison, 1998, p. 9). It was agreed in 1996 to admit Peru, Russia, and Vietnam, while having a moratorium on further admissions for ten years (Morrison, 1998, p. 18).
The membership of APEC thus spans an astonishing range of economic development levels as wide as its geographic scope, which stretches more than halfway around the planet, from Indonesia to Chile. APEC members range from the world's two leading industrial economies, the United States and Japan, to smaller highly industrialized countries such as South Korea and Australia, to mid level developing economies such as Mexico and Indonesia, to Papua New Guinea, in the interior of which many people still live by a hunter gatherer economy little changed since the paleolithic era.
The cultural scope of APEC is scarcely less comprehensive than its geographic and economic range. Its members include East Asian societies with what may broadly be called a Confucian cultural heritage; Southeast Asian societies that combine elements drawn from the Chinese and Indian cultural zones; the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia; four English speaking nations, the US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia; and nations of Latin heritage, Mexico and Chile (and to some degree the Philippines).
The range of political institutions and conditions represented by APEC members is likewise broad. It includes several of the world's longest established liberal democracies, and emergent democracies such as South Korea and Taiwan. It also includes authoritarian societies such as the PRC and Singapore, the latter especially noteworthy for having set forth a comprehensive critique of liberal democracy. It includes nations with long histories of political stability, as well as at least one member, Indonesia, whose territorial integrity and cohesiveness is significantly in d...