RCEP Should Play A Bigger Strategic Role

"East Asia Forum Quarterly" recently published a joint article by Shiro Armstrong, a scholar at Australian National University, and Yose Rizal Damuri, a scholar at the Center for International Strategic Studies in the United States, arguing that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) should play a strategic role and transform the text of the agreement into dynamic cooperation. 

The article stated that RCEP not only plays a pivotal role in GDP, population, trade in goods, etc., but also reiterated its commitment to maintaining open markets and updated East Asian trade and investment rules at a time when protectionism was on the rise and the multilateral trading system was frustrated. The economic cooperation agenda is one of the important pillars of RCEP, following the path and goal of ASEAN to promote the development of the least developed members. The capacity building and technical assistance activities carried out under the economic cooperation agenda will help members to fulfill their commitments in the agreement, but the more important significance lies in expanding rules, members and even political cooperation through in-depth economic cooperation.

The construction of the RCEP mechanism is relatively complete, with institutions and activities such as the secretariat, regular ministerial meetings, and leaders' annual summits. The above-mentioned political track provides a guarantee for extensive and in-depth economic cooperation. In addition, the agreement also establishes a joint committee and a special committee, which will promote the institutionalization of the participation of industry and experts. In the current geopolitical environment, the above structure will play an important role in building regional mutual trust.

RCEP rules cover e-commerce and digital trade, trade facilitation, rules of origin, investment, intellectual property and other fields. Liberalization of trade in goods and services and regional cumulative rules of origin will help deepen value chain cooperation. For the rules on state-owned enterprises, environment, and labor that have not been covered by RCEP, it is recommended to improve the rules through the process of economic cooperation. At the same time, not all issues affecting international trade should be included in FTAs, such as infrastructure investment principles and standards, dispute mediation, energy transition, digital economy, supply chain resilience, sovereign debt management, post-pandemic recovery and other major issues. Cooperation can be carried out on a voluntary and flexible basis. In addition, similar to the development path of ASEAN, the agreement is also expected to become an important platform to promote the multilateralization of market access.

A flexible approach and a philosophy of inclusion will also help to expand potential parties to the agreement. For example, the agreement still welcomes the participation of India, which can participate in issues of interest such as cooperation in post-epidemic recovery; Bangladesh also expressed its desire to join the agreement. The participation of South Asian countries will help expand the global value chain in East Asia and help refine the comparative advantages of ASEAN countries. Countries and regions with low manufacturing costs will be more integrated into the value chain.

In conclusion, RCEP's economic cooperation agenda is the epitome of open regionalism, and its structure will be conducive to attracting more interested members to cooperate on a wide range of issues. The article believes that the entry into force and implementation of RCEP is an important start. In the next step, the parties should focus on planning the strategic direction of the development of the agreement, and determine the scope of cooperation and level of ambition before the leaders and ministerial meetings within this year.