Shenzhen Can Be Proud of APEC, but Mature Confidence Requires Perspective

The 2026 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting will be held in Shenzhen. For the city, this is unquestionably an event worth taking seriously and one it can reasonably be proud of.

A few days ago I wrote an article tracing APEC from its beginnings in Canberra, Australia, in 1989 to the present, and then to China hosting APEC for the third time and Shenzhen becoming the host city for this year’s leaders’ meeting. Following that historical line, it is easy to feel a strong sense of history. More than three decades have passed. A mechanism that began as a form of regional economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific has now arrived in Shenzhen, while Shenzhen itself has grown from a border city at the beginning of China’s reform and opening period into one of the country’s most important economic and technology centres.

That feeling is real.

But after finishing the article, I was left with another impression — Shenzhen seems to be giving this APEC meeting slightly too much symbolic weight.

Shenzhen is now undertaking large-scale urban improvements around APEC, including infrastructure work, environmental upgrades, international service improvements and extensive promotion. The city’s 2026 government work report explicitly calls for an integrated approach to “hosting the event, improving the city, developing industry and benefiting residents”, while raising Shenzhen’s international profile and strengthening city marketing and international communication. In other words, Shenzhen is not treating APEC simply as a few days of international meetings. It wants to use the occasion to present the city as a whole. (Shenzhen Government)

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Any city hosting a major international event will use the opportunity to improve infrastructure, lift public services and extend its influence.

The real question is how we should understand the actual weight of this meeting.

APEC is not the Olympic Games.

Shenzhen did not enter an international contest against Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Seoul and other cities, then emerge victorious after a vote by APEC members. APEC operates on a different basis. Each year, one of its 21 member economies serves as host. Under APEC’s arrangements, economies offer to host and obtain members’ agreement in advance; once the host economy is settled, the location of the meetings is determined by that host economy. (APEC)

So the basic fact about 2026 is first that China is hosting APEC, and only then that China has chosen Shenzhen for the leaders’ meeting.

Those two levels should not be reversed.

If we overlook that distinction, it becomes easy to create an inaccurate narrative in which the world somehow compared competing cities and “chose Shenzhen”, turning the meeting itself into a form of international certification of Shenzhen’s status. A more accurate description is that in the year China serves as APEC host, it has decided to place the most important leaders’ meeting in Shenzhen.

That still matters.

At the very least, it indicates that at the national level Shenzhen is regarded as having the infrastructure, transport, security, hotels, international services and organisational capacity required for an event of this level. At the same time, what Shenzhen represents — reform and opening, technological innovation, advanced manufacturing, the digital economy and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area — makes it an especially suitable city through which China can present itself to the Asia-Pacific today. APEC has also confirmed that China is the 2026 host and that Shenzhen will host APEC Economic Leaders’ Week in November. (APEC)

So Shenzhen certainly has reason to be proud.

But pride and exaggeration are not the same thing.

The simplest comparison is 2027. Once the Shenzhen meetings are over in 2026, APEC will not stop, nor will arriving in Shenzhen mark some historical endpoint. The following year, Viet Nam will host APEC. The 2025 Gyeongju Declaration already set out the forthcoming host years, including China in 2026, Viet Nam in 2027, Mexico in 2028, and later Singapore, Japan, Chile and other economies. (APEC)

Put Shenzhen back into that continuing sequence and our judgement naturally becomes more measured.

This year the spotlight is on Shenzhen. Next year it will move to Viet Nam. That is how APEC functions as an ongoing mechanism for Asia-Pacific cooperation.

So the more meaningful question is not “Why did APEC choose Shenzhen?” It is something else — why, when China is hosting APEC for the third time, did it choose Shenzhen for the leaders’ meeting?

That question is genuinely connected to Shenzhen’s own development.

When China first hosted APEC in 2001, the leaders’ meeting was in Shanghai. The second time, in 2014, it was in Beijing. In 2026, it comes to Shenzhen. That shift contains a thread running through the changing development of Chinese cities and the way China presents itself internationally.

Shanghai once represented China’s renewed integration into the global economy. Beijing more directly expressed the role of the national political and diplomatic centre. Shenzhen today is readily associated with technology, manufacturing, innovation, private enterprise and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Seen from this angle, Shenzhen hosting APEC means more than simply saying that a “world-class event has come to Shenzhen”.

What matters is not that one meeting has turned Shenzhen into an important city. It is that more than four decades of development have made Shenzhen capable of hosting a meeting of this kind.

Those two causal relationships need to be kept clear.

Shenzhen did not acquire international standing because it is hosting APEC.

Rather, Shenzhen developed to the point where China was willing to place the APEC leaders’ meeting there.

The meeting is a display window, not the substance of the city’s strength.

If the real value of a city is measured by how many international meetings it has hosted, how many foreign leaders have visited or how much media coverage it receives, that may actually suggest the city still depends on external recognition to confirm its own position.

Shenzhen no longer needs that.

What it can genuinely be proud of is the industrial system built over decades, the wealth created by businesses and ordinary people, the progression from processing and manufacturing into technology, communications, new energy, drones, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing, and the city’s capacity to keep attracting people, capital, technology and ideas while repeatedly reshaping itself.

None of that disappears when APEC leaves Shenzhen.

In 2027, the meetings will move to Viet Nam, but Shenzhen will still be Shenzhen.

So I am not trying to pour cold water on Shenzhen’s APEC moment. Quite the opposite. I think genuine civic confidence should be able to hold two attitudes at once — we can be pleased that Shenzhen is hosting such an important international meeting and enjoy the sense of civic pride that comes with it, while also understanding where the meeting actually sits within the APEC system.

Neither self-deprecation nor overstatement is necessary.

A young city growing rapidly can easily feel the need for the outside world to keep telling it, “You have become important.” That is understandable. But once a city truly matures, it should gradually move beyond that need.

It no longer needs an international meeting to prove itself. It does not need to interpret every international event as “the world choosing Shenzhen”, and it does not need an excessively grand narrative to confirm its own value.

There is nothing wrong with taking pride in APEC coming to Shenzhen.

But a truly mature Shenzhen should also be able to understand precisely what this meeting means — and what it does not mean.

To remain clear-headed amid the excitement, to keep a sense of proportion within pride, neither exaggerating nor diminishing itself — that is the attitude of a Shenzhen that is genuinely growing into maturity.