India has made a “strategic mistake” and “missed the bus” for long-term growth, Chinese state media has said about New Delhi’s decision not to join the 15-country-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). by China, signed Sunday at an online ceremony hosted by this year’s ASEAN President Vietnam.
The 15 countries that signed the agreement span the Asia-Pacific region, including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, along with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Signed after eight years of negotiations, the RCEP has created the largest trade bloc in the world, with the aim of boosting economic growth in member countries that has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Together, they account for about 30% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and population.
“The RCEP deal covers a market of 2.2 billion people, or nearly 30% of the world’s population, with a combined GDP of $ 26.2 trillion or about 30% of global GDP,” the official news agency reported. Xinhua.
He praised the agreement as “… not just a monumental achievement in East Asian regional cooperation, but more importantly, a victory for multilateralism and free trade.”
Two major economies, the United States and India, are not part of the agreement. India, which had initially participated in the negotiations, withdrew from the trading bloc last year.
There are “important outstanding issues, which remain unresolved,” New Delhi said last year before withdrawing from the RCEP.
New Delhi’s list of concerns includes the possibility of opening its markets to cheap products made in China, with which it already runs a huge bilateral trade deficit.
Chinese experts from South Asia were quick to criticize India for not joining the trade bloc, calling it a mistake and blaming “interest groups” for the decision.
“The Indian government maintains that since China has an advantageous position in the deal and India has a growing trade deficit with China, that context would leave India in an unfair position if it joined,” said Liu Zongyi of the Center for China. the South Asian Cooperation in the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies in the Chinese state media.
“However, most international observers believe that it is the work of some interest groups in India, who are striving to obstruct the participation of India for their own interests, while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Party Bharatiya Janata made concessions to win their support, “Liu wrote.
Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Institute of Strategy at Tsinghua University, argued that New Delhi has missed the bus to the fast lane of economic recovery.
“With the second highest number of new coronavirus infections in the world so far, India may lose a new round of regional industrial reconstruction and the fast lane of economic recovery,” Qian wrote in the nationalist tabloid Global Times.
“The Indian economy has been greatly affected by Covid-19 and recorded a record contraction during the April-June quarter of 23.9%. According to an IMF estimate, it could contract by 10.3% in 2020. Although the RCEP may still leave an opportunity for India, it will be difficult for the nation to change its direction unless New Delhi clearly realizes that its central interest is it has been hampered by its biased strategy, ”Qian added.
A joint statement issued in November 2019 in Thailand at the end of the RCEP negotiations recognized India’s concerns.
“India has significant outstanding problems, which remain unsolved. All RCEP participating countries will work together to resolve these outstanding issues in a mutually satisfactory manner. India’s final decision will depend on the satisfactory resolution of these problems, ”the statement said.
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