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Sunday, November 15, 2020
By Max Borowski
The content of the new Asia-Pacific RCEP trade agreement is formally unspectacular. But it marks another step in the global power shift. The United States and Europe not only renounce commercial interests, but also their influence on the protection of the environment and human rights.
The symbolism could hardly have been more drastic: US President Donald Trump regretted not being able to attend the virtual summit of the community of Southeast Asian states ASEAN and other countries in the Pacific region, assured the national security adviser. of the President of the United States, who represented him. At the same time, the US media published photos of what the president-elect made important: playing golf at his own Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Meanwhile, the 15 participating Asia-Pacific states have concluded an agreement for the world’s largest free trade zone.
The Regional and Comprehensive Economic Association (RCEP) and the President Golfer of the United States show how the coordinates in the world trading system have changed and will continue to change. A gigantic trade zone is emerging in Asia, comprising about a third of the world’s population and economic output. The two largest economic powers in the world to date, the US and the EU, are not only not involved in this deal. Nor do they create a counterweight through their own comparable business arrangements. Trump has halted both U.S. participation in the Pacific Trade Agreement PPT, a pact aimed at countering China’s dominance in Asia, and free trade with Europe under the TTIP treaty. RCEP now shows how world trade integration is progressing despite protectionism in the United States or skepticism of globalization in Europe, with China leading the way.
The treaty text, which has been negotiated for years, contains little revolutionary. Participating states, in addition to ASEAN members Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, also participate in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, have already signed bilateral trade agreements with ASEAN. Linked alliance. The practical achievement of RCEP is that it harmonizes these partially different contracts into a single agreement. This is likely to be particularly noticeable in companies involved in cutting red tape. The agreed tariff reductions and the dismantling of other trade barriers, on the other hand, are not very ambitious compared to other agreements, initially.
No standards for the environment and human rights
But with RCEP, a business organization has emerged within which more is already being done than in any other region in the world. RCEP will continue to accelerate trade growth in this Asia Pacific region. Europe and the US are not only in danger of losing market share. Its power to set standards in world trade will diminish and China’s influence will continue to increase. What this means can be seen, among other things, in the fact that the RCEP, unlike the agreements promoted by the US and Europe in the past, does not force its members to comply with minimum standards in terms of human rights, environmental protection or intellectual property protection.
At the same time, the RCEP also represents a concession to its neighbors for the increasingly powerful economic and political leadership in Beijing. Although China has an overwhelming preponderance in all bilateral relations with the countries of the region, it by no means dominates the multilateral trade pact. Together, for example, the western-oriented contractual partners Japan, South Korea, and Australia are at least economically equal. In his view, the RCEP, after the United States failed as a partner, is an important step in limiting China’s rapid rise in power.
