Editor's Note: The 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting will be held in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, on November 18.
From Singapore to Sydney, from Jakarta to Bangkok, from Mexico City to Lima—Guangdong's links with APEC economies have never been just lines on a map. For 37 consecutive years, Guangdong has been Singapore's largest provincial-level trading partner in China. In Thailand, new energy vehicles made in Guangdong are entering households across the country. In Indonesia, industrial parks with Guangdong participation are helping reshape the local industrialization landscape. In Peru, the direct shipping route from Guangzhou's Nansha to Chancay Port has brought the two sides of the Pacific closer than ever.
Behind these figures and cooperation are real people, real stories that cross mountains and seas and friendships that have grown with mutual benefit.
Recently, a team from South visited HDB towns in Singapore, high-tech parks in Malaysia, new industrial towns in Vietnam, fishery cold-chain terminals in Papua New Guinea and distribution hubs for trendy goods in South Korea. It also visited enterprises and communities from APEC economies in Guangdong, recording from a first-person perspective the real picture of Guangdong and its "friends" moving from goods trade to industrial cooperation and then to people-to-people bonds and cultural integration.
As the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting enters the two-month countdown, we are launching "Guangdong Meets APEC," a series of special reports, featuring a sustainable Asia-Pacific community with a shared future under the APEC framework.
Few places on Earth feel as wild as Papua New Guinea. Spread across more than 600 islands, the Pacific nation is home to extraordinary cultural and biological diversity. But some of what comes from its waters is now travelling much further—all the way to dinner tables in China.
For local seafood exporter Tony Lan, China has transformed the scale of his business. His company buys wild-caught mud crabs from local fishermen before flying them to Chinese cities including Guangzhou.
"We used to sell a few hundred kilos a week to the local market," Lan said. "But once we started exporting crabs to China, business just exploded. Now we're moving 20 to 30 tons a week."
The impact has spread beyond the company itself. Lan said families involved in the crab trade have been able to build better homes and buy televisions and generators.
But the connections between Papua New Guinea and Guangdong go far beyond seafood.
In Port Moresby, 21-year-old Maureen works as a receptionist for a Chinese company. Finding work is far from guaranteed. "A lot of degree holders, they don't have jobs," she said. "But you see me, I don't have a degree, but I have a job."
Her story leads back to Butuka Academy, the school she graduated from. Built with support from Shenzhen under its sister-city relationship with Port Moresby, the academy now accommodates around 3,000 students. Maureen says the computer skills she learned there—including Microsoft applications, web skills and Excel—are the same ones she now uses at work.
Another connection has taken root in soil.
Juncao, a grass-based agricultural technology developed in China, was introduced to Papua New Guinea in the 1990s. Initially used for mushroom cultivation, it has since found applications ranging from livestock feed to fibers and bioenergy. Over three decades, the technology has spread to more than 9,000 farming households, benefiting around 30,000 people.
For Georgina, whose family was among the early adopters, Juncao has shaped both family life and career. After struggling to find a job for two years, she returned to mushroom farming and helped local farmers find markets. That experience eventually led to her current work with a Shenzhen company exploring new uses for the grass.
"I want everyone to know about Juncao, the benefits of it," she said. "It's part of me."
For National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop, such exchanges are part of Papua New Guinea's wider development journey.
"Being a rural-based, traditional economy, now trying to become a modern economy, we can only learn from China," Parkop said. He also stressed the importance of APEC for smaller economies, saying PNG does not always have the means to engage with economies across the Pacific individually, "and we have the opportunity at APEC."
Reporters: Xie Hongzhou, Liu Lingzhi
Script: Xie Hongzhou
Filming: Qin Shaolong, Guo Hongda
Video editor: Qin Shaolong
Voiceover: Xie Hongzhou
Cover: Lai Meiya
Cai Minling also contributed to the story.
