From Japanese auto parts that enter China duty-free, cheaper Australian dairy products in Thailand, low-tax Korean electronics in New Zealand, the examples are endless. By eliminating 90% of the customs tariffs that still applied between them, fifteen states of Asia and Oceania concluded, this weekend of November 14-15, 2020, in Hanoi (Vietnam) a giant free trade agreement.
Agricultural productions not concerned
Main exceptions, agricultural productions, sensitive on the social level as much as food, the very ones which paralyze l’OMC long before Donald Trump got involved.
The negotiations were launched in 2011 by the small group of Asean (Indonesia, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore). What became the Regional Economic Partnership (RCEP to use its English acronym) took on another dimension when Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and China joined.
The RCEP is the agreement that covers the largest number of inhabitants (2 billion) and the largest share of gross domestic product (28.9%). Only the one between the European Union and Japan Outclasses it in terms of trade value.
India’s withdrawal
It would have been of even greater significance if India, associated with the negotiations, had not withdrawn from it. It intends to push itself into a new industrial power in the face of a China of which it denounces, moreover, the rampant expansionism.
Trump’s role
Paradoxically, it was Donald Trump who accelerated the creation of this gigantic hunting ground around China, when the future former American president withdrew the United States from another alliance that they themselves had initiated for isolate Beijing, allying a few countries in America with a handful of others in Asia. Joe Biden to find new ways to pursue the goal a priori unchanged from Washington.
Even though she managed to further increase its exports during the pandemic, this agreement should not be made a triumph for China, believes Françoise Nicolas, economist and researcher at Ifri.
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It is not at the origin. And Beijing’s priority now is to develop its domestic market. The big winners will be especially the countries of Asean, which will benefit from an expansion and a growing complexity of the industry throughout this region. “
Nothing on worker protection
Globalization would therefore not be dead. And if the RCEP must not only reduce customs duties, but also facilitate the harmonization of standards and guarantee intellectual property, nothing is planned on the protection of workers and the environment.
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