LEADERS of Apec, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, fulfilled their most pressing duty at the Sydney summit in admonishing that the hour is late for the Doha Round trade talks. Any suggestion that this was a ritualistic act, signifying little, should be dismissed. Far more than the G-8, the Cairns group of agricultural producers and the coalitions of developing nations, Apec carries persuasive force in moving Doha along. This is not just for the region's big share of world commerce, but also for the combined diplomatic and economic weight of the United States, China, Japan and South Korea. If only Russia, a somewhat quiet Apec member so far, was already within the market-economy fold. It may well have some sway over the negotiating stance of rising mercantile powers like India, one of the four principals in the Doha Round's penultimate act on subsidies and tariffs.

It is significant that Mr Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organisation overseeing the Doha Round, did quiet lobbying in Sydney. He had said after the Potsdam talks in June, on the sticking points of farm subsidy reductions and market entry into developing-world economies, that the process would be in limbo for years more if it was not concluded towards the end of this year. This was scare talk, in a way. Doha has survived a number of 'final' deadlines and it is still kicking, if not quite thriving. It will survive the US Congress taking back definitive trade-negotiating authority from the President, and the dominant Democrats making the usual threatening noises about protecting American jobs. If Mr Lamy, a Frenchman, does not want to leave the WTO job a failure, he should be applying pressure on his European friends as much as on India and the US at the talks which have restarted in Geneva. Jointly, they are gumming up the works in an endless round of rich versus not-so-rich wrangling over tariffs and subsidies.

Two positive developments will help. First, the US should desist from talking as if it has given Doha up for dead. Its chief negotiator, Ms Susan Schwab, ought to pipe down on 'alternatives' to Doha such as Asia-Pacific regional and bilateral deals, and try rolling back the insularity that is infecting American thinking on trade. Second, it would be no betrayal for Apec members to ask India and Brazil to take another look at their 'red line' tariff concessions. But - and this is critical - for the developing world to get off the guilt trip about protecting livelihoods, the US and EU have to be twice as forceful in telling their people they can only do so much protecting prosperity without disrupting the whole trading system.