BEIJING: China plans to use a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders to promote a regional trade initiative at a time when progress on a rival US-led trade deal has stalled, injecting a note of rivalry into an annual summit that aims for consensus.

The two-day meeting of 21 countries including the US, Japan and South Korea is the first major international gathering in China since President Xi Jinping came to power.

Starting on Monday, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting gives China a platform to assert itself as a regional leader.

The proposal promoted by China, the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, is part of an agenda that also includes talks on cooperation in environmental protection, energy efficiency and urbanization.

“We will reach important consensus” on the launch of the free trade process, said Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a news conference ahead of the gathering.

China’s campaign for the initiative comes as Beijing tries to claim a bigger role in US-dominated global trade, security and financial structures.

Last month, China and 20 other Asian nations launched a bank to pay for roads and other infrastructure, despite US objections it is an unneeded rival to the World Bank. Beijing is providing most of the $50 billion in startup capital.

In May, Xi called for the creation of a new Asian structure for security cooperation based on a 24-nation group that excludes the US.

Beijing worries Washington is pursuing a “strategy of containment” against China and sees a China-led trade pact as a way to gain influence, said Chen Bo, a trade specialist at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. “China doesn’t want to be led by the nose by the US,” said Bo.

“The more they have in hand, the better their negotiating ability will be. Then people will want to join China, instead of China joining other countries.”

China is the top trading partner for most countries in the region, from Australia to South Korea.

Such countries want to promote commercial ties but are uneasy about Beijing’s strategic ambitions, especially at a time when it is embroiled in territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea and with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian neighbors in the South China Sea.

The US and some other governments believe China’s trade initiative is at too early a stage to take up at APEC and will be a distraction, said New Zealand’s trade minister, Tim Groser.