With the rise of new regionalism since the 1990s, regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific has entered the phase of rapid acceleration. Although a large number of competing bilateral or sub-regional trade arrangements have been built in this ...
With the rise of new regionalism since the 1990s, regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific has entered the phase of rapid acceleration. Although a large number of competing bilateral or sub-regional trade arrangements have been built in this process, we have never seen the formation of a free trade area which covers the entire region. In that case, the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation mechanism has caught the troubles of low level cooperation, institutional surplus and the absence of controlling power. It is the essence of the appearance of multiple mechanisms that under the strategy of competitive liberalization, countries are establishing the regional mechanisms that are in accordance with their own benefits and helps them to compete for the dominance role in the region.
While complicated regional economic cooperation mechanisms have appeared in the Asia-Pacific, the most eye-catching development is the competition between US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) led by ASEAN.
TPP was a multilateral free trade agreement, initially established by New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei and Chile in the year of 2005, distinguished with the characteristic of openness, comprehensiveness, high-quality and high standard. TPP, well known as the new model of Free Trade in 21st century, was a new, high level and advanced regional free trade agreement. TPP was hardly known till United State declared to join in the year of 2009 and since then, it have entered a new stage. And it was drafted on 5 October 2015, signed on 4 February 2016 with totally 12 members finally.
US promote the TPP negotiation actively not only for economic interests, more importantly, for the realistic political and strategic goals. As a result, it becomes an essential part of US rebalance strategy. If TPP works successfully, it will have an important impact on China. In specific, TPP will affect China’s export, agriculture, economy and the trading environment and trading status. Meanwhile, TPP acting as another competitive mechanism will participate in the construction of Asia-Pacific free trade Area building, challenging the existing regional cooperation mechanism.
For the purpose of balance the power of United States, ASEAN then promoted the development of RCEP. RCEP also intends to build a high level economic cooperation mechanism, but its standard is more moderate and conforms to the interests of the developing countries. The RCEP negotiation is based on the existing‘10+1’free trade agreement signed by ASEAN, with Korean, China, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand. RCEP adopts the strategy of ‘progressive liberalization’ which allows the special and differential treatment for some less developed countries. The aim of ASEAN to promote RCEP is to consolidate its own position in the region, to integrate the regional economic cooperation mechanisms and to offset the negative impact of TPP.
This paper first introduces the research background, including the status quo and development trend of TPP study in mainland and abroad. Then describes the main contents of the TPP, the main characteristics and the problems that why China can not join in the TPP: Mostly because of the high standards and the rules for state-owned enterprise of TPP. The part 4 analyzes the influence to WTO due to the development of TPP and the impact on other preferential trade agreement in the region of Asia-Pacific and China. Finally, to cope with the possible influence of TPP, we should continue to promote the development of FTA, promote the development of the RCEP and Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises, improve the labor and environment standards at the same time, improve the international competitiveness. And also enhance cooperation with the US. In this way, China can deal with the effect and challenges brought by TPP easily.