For China, it's an important platform to showcase its diplomatic prowess. For Beijing residents, it has brought the gift of a six-day holiday and some inconvenience. For some Western media outlets, it's another occasion to criticize Beijing for hosting "meeting galas" at the cost of people's normal life. The "APEC week" means different things to different people.

To ensure that the capital gets blue skies during the APEC conference, Beijing, Tianjin and neighboring cities in Hebei province reduced the number of vehicles on the road by half, suspended production in factories, and some government departments and other organizations in Beijing granted a holiday to employees from Nov 7 to 12. And from Nov 6, emergency measures were expanded to six cities in Shandong province if needed.

"To have friends come from awayisn't that a joy?" is a famous saying attributed to Confucius. China believes in it and, hence, has taken all the necessary measures to ensure the "APEC guests" enjoy their stay in Beijing and the conference proceeds smoothly. Since more than 10,000 VIPs from across the world will attend the conference, Beijing has to impose strict traffic control and high-level security measures to ensure their safety and security. Therefore, declaring a six-day holiday is justified. Earlier APEC conference hosts such as Bangkok, Sydney and Lima too declared several days of public holiday.