Yesterday Richard Woolcott quietly sounded the death knell for Kevin Rudd’s regional ambition for an Asia-Pacific Community. There was “no appetite” for a new body, Woolcott said, after consulting with 13 countries in the region. They were quite happy with the existing structures.

Given regional leaders are already overwhelmed with a surfeit of bodies, summits, fora, acronyms, groups and other bits of “architecture”, the lack of appetite is understandable. The Asia-Pacific Community proposal got a mention in the APEC communiqué, but in such flat and uninspiring terms as to suggest it was inserted simply to shut that Australian bloke up.

Rudd announced the proposal in June and dispatched Woolcott — the sort of foreign policy elder traditionally pressed into service by excitable young governments — on a grand tour of the region to sell it. Since then, the Prime Minister has of course become enamoured of another new group, the G20, which wasn’t Rudd’s idea but as we know he tried hard to claim credit for convincing George W. Bush of its merits.

Even before that, the Asia-Pacific Community was never anything other than a Rudd vanity project unlikely to be of interest to anyone outside the PM’s office. As Helen Coonan pointed out yesterday, Rudd has employed all his usual candour and willingness to admit mistakes in relation to the Community concept. In Lima he spoke about how it would unfold over years.

Proponents — well, the solitary proponent, the PM himself — say that people also underestimated APEC at the beginning. In truth, APEC hasn’t been relevant as anything other than a funny photo pic opportunity and a good excuse for lots of quick bilateral meetings for years. The Howard Government virtually ignored it until Howard himself decided it would be electorally advantageous to play host last year, at which point he and Alexander Downer became almost Keating-like in their enthusiasm for the forum. As we know, it didn’t quite play out as they hoped.

The G20 phone call and the Asia-Pacific Community proposal aren’t the only examples of Rudd’s foreign affairs vanity. On 24 October, European and Asian leaders met in Beijing at the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting. ASEM first met in 1996 and Australia was left out from the start, despite the best efforts of Alexander Downer to get onto the guest list. There were mutterings back then that the Government’s handling of the Pauline Hanson issue was to blame, although it was more likely Malaysia’ recalcitrance.

According to DFAT sources, Rudd was outraged that his Government was continuing to get the same treatment as his predecessor’s, and demanded that DFAT secure an invite for him to join the likes of Hu Jintao, Taro Aso, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy in Beijing. Our diplomats had to embarrass themselves by approaching Asian and European governments for a last-minute invitation for Rudd, well after the agenda and list of summiteers had been settled at the highest levels. Unsurprisingly, they drew a blank.

Rudd himself has argued that Australia must pursue “middle-power diplomacy”. Hopefully at some point he’ll accept the logic of that himself and stop trying to change the world single-handedly.