Ardern's Apec a mix of highly political and deeply personal

Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern setting off for a day's work in Danang. Photo / AP

Prime Minister’s trip to Vietnam a catapult on to world stage.

Jacinda Ardern's entrance on to the international stage has been a mix of the highly political and deeply personal.

The new Prime Minister found herself in the middle of a political crisis over the future of the TPP trade deal when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to attend a leaders' summit.

There had been no inkling of the trouble ahead when, just a few hours earlier, she held a bilateral meeting with Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who has been leading the TPP after the US withdrew.

The pair began with pleasantries, congratulating each other about their recent electoral success and the bonds between the two countries, before the media were asked to leave the room.

It concluded, we are told, on a touching and personal note when Abe conveyed his condolences on the death of her cat, Paddles, who was run over near her Pt Chevalier home last week.

Trudeau's delegation followed the New Zealanders and that is when Abe got an inkling that the big TPP parade, over which he was about to preside, was about to be rained on from a great height.

Leaders attend the family photo session at the APEC Summit in Danang. Photo / AP

Trudeau and the Canadian delegation have come in for some serious closed-door criticism because of the surprise decision to boycott the leaders' finale.

But a few hours later it was back to civility at a gala dinner, during which Trudeau introduced Ardern to US President Donald Trump and Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto.

The three North American Free Trade Agreement partners all wore blue versions of their "silly-shirts", a tradition of Apec summits in which leaders don garments designed by the host for a group photo.

Ardern had chosen cream for her silk jacket, which looked anything but silly.

Her hair was tied up with a Maori-designed bone comb given to her by the Pike River families.

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk during the APEC-ASEAN dialogue. Photo / AP

She met China's President Xi Jinping at an event on Friday, in which the pair were among a dialogue group of about a dozen and she shook the hand of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She was also sought out by Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg at a CEO summit, who told Ardern "we're cheering you on".

Sandberg presented Ardern with a signed photograph of New Zealand women's rights pioneer Kate Sheppard.

At the gala dinner, Ardern sat next to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, another guest, and it is safe to say their talk involved Myanmar politics.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters secured what he called "an advantageous" spot sitting between US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and old friend Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Unfortunately, the conversation, while not sub judice, was deemed to be private by Peters.

It is obviously other states, other countries, who have played a bigger part in these talks collapsing in recent days.

Jacinda Ardern

While the Apec leaders were getting to know each other, the TPP leader subset had ordered their Trade Ministers into crisis talks to try to salvage the TPP deal.

The Trade Ministers, including Canada's, duly emerged from the meeting with an agreement on most of the deal.

They agreed to discuss four issues that, according to New Zealand experts, are not deal-breakers.

There was much speculation about whether Canada's renegotiation of Nafta with Trump may have something to do with it.

They also emerged from their talks with a new name for TPP - the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership, CPTPP.

Ardern said it was clear there was now stabilised text, or text that the 11 countries had agreed on.

"But it is obviously other states, other countries, who have played a bigger part in these talks collapsing in recent days," she said.

Ardern and her delegation move on today to the Philippines, which is hosting the Asean summit and then the East Asia Summit, which New Zealand attends as a member.