| Since it was founded in Nov.1989, APEC has been developing for almost 15 years. The number of its member economies has grown from 12 to 21. And it has gone into a new stage of substantial regional economic cooperation instead of just seeking for ways of cooperation at the beginning. After Bogor Objectives and Osaka Action Agenda were put forward, the regional economic cooperation patterns of APEC had ever caught the attention of the whole world. And people held optimistic expectation towards its prospect. The studies of academic circle on APEC problems flooded in the following period. However, its inaction during the financial crisis of east Asia in 1997 made many member countries disappointed. Its unilateral plan of action was frustrated at Kuala Lumpur conference in 1998, which exacerbated people's pessimistic feeling towards the future of APEC. In recent years, the regional economic cooperation of APEC went into stagnation. And the studies of the academic circle on APEC were at a low tide. The author of this paper argues that when the future of APEC is dismal, we should still do thorough studies on the cooperation pattern, the problems, and the prospect of APEC, probe into the development direction of the regional economic cooperation of APEC, and reconsider the policies we take in the cooperation. This paper presents a systemic analysis on the regional cooperation pattern, the challenges, and the prospect of APEC, as well as the countermeasures of our country in the cooperation, using Marxism's study method which combines historical analysis with specific analysis. International regional economic cooperation is usually regarded as regional economic integration, which means that two or more than two countries realize regional economic inosculation and market integration through signing free trade agreements or other economic agreements. According to the level of development, organizations of regional economic integration can be divided into several basic types, such as economic integration of single commodity, preferential trade arrangement, free trade area, zollverein, common market, economic union, complete economic integration. After the Second World War, regional economic integration experienced preliminary, flourishing, and accelerated periods on the whole. The reasons why regional economic integrations come into being and grow up are many-sided. After the middle of the 1980s, many special conditions appears which accelerate the speed of regional economic integration. The practices have brought forth and promoted the theories. The early theories are those of zollverein, mainly based on F. List's trade protection theory. The emergence of J.Viner's traditional theory on zollverein marked the birth of regional economic integration theory. Modern theories on zollverein have further developed J.Viner's theory. APEC is another representative regional economic integration organization after EU. Its cooperative principle is open regionalism. In fact, it is an official economic forum. Since it was founded in 1989, it has experienced three stages: its foundation and initial exploration on the patterns of regional cooperation; construction of its organization and settlement of its objectives; promoting free trade and investment, and economic and technological cooperation. Currently, the basic organizational structure of APEC involves five levels: informal conferences for leaders, ministerial conferences, conferences for high officials, various special committees and workgroup committees, and secretarial office. It is different from other economic integration organizations, such as EU and NAFTA, in terms of its member countries and operating pattern, etc. Therefore, the analysis of the traditional theories on zollverein is not fit for the real conditions of the regional cooperation of APEC.APEC Trade and Investment Structure Announcement enunciated on Seattle conference in 1993 established the objective of APEC, that is, to realize free trade and investment. Bogor announcement in 1994 made cle...
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