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2. Pakistan’s Hard Policy Choices in Afghanistan
- Author:
- International Crisis Group
- Publication Date:
- 02-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Islamabad must tread carefully with its long-time Taliban allies back in power in Kabul. Pitfalls lie ahead for Pakistan’s domestic security and its foreign relations. The Pakistani government should encourage Afghanistan’s new authorities down the path of compromise with international demands regarding rights and counter-terrorism.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Governance, and Leadership
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Middle East, and Asia
3. New Dynamism in ASEAN and East Asia: The Role of the RCEP as a ‘Living’ Agreement
- Author:
- Shandre Mugan Thangavelu, Fukunari Kimura, and Dionisius Narjoko
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- This policy brief highlights the importance of maintaining open regionalism and economic and regional integration for sustainable and inclusive regional and global growth in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia. With rising global uncertainties and global value chain (GVC) disruptions, the region requires a new economic and social agenda beyond trading arrangements, and the alignment of global, regional, and domestic policies and structural issues. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is expected to provide a new institutional framework under the built-in institutional feature (Chapter 18) of the agreement.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, Regionalism, and Global Value Chains
- Political Geography:
- Asia and ASEAN
4. The Indo-Pacific Partnership and Digital Trade Rule Setting: Policy Proposals
- Author:
- Lurong Cheh
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- The idea of the Indo-Pacific was borne from a global trend that has (re)oriented the centre of the world’s economic gravity to the East. Accelerating digital transformation to harness gains from technology are in countries’ common interests. The launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity tends to supplement economic benefits to the Indo-Pacific. Becoming more deeply involved in the digital economy will require Indo-Pacific members to commit to new international norms on digital trade, of which trade liberalisation of electronic transmissions, free flow of data with trust, cybersecurity, and intellectual property rights protection must be prioritised.
- Topic:
- Development, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Digital Economy
- Political Geography:
- Asia and Indo-Pacific
5. Japan and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)
- Author:
- Mie Oba
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- This paper aims to clarify the role of Japan in the process leading up to the establishment of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). While emphasising that respect for the centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was a principle of RCEP, Japan played a leading role in the process of RCEP negotiations. For Japan, RCEP is one of the fruits of its strategy in East Asia/Asia-Pacific that began the mid-1990s to protect and increase the interests and advantages of Japanese business and retain Japan’s political leverage in the region. When substantial negotiations for RCEP began in 2013, its importance for Japan was secondary to other free trade agreements (FTAs) including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China–Japan–Korea FTA, and Japan–European Union FTA. However, the Government of Japan and the business community had set a lot of economic and strategic goals in promoting RCEP. After the withdrawal of the United States (US) from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, RCEP was seen as an essential framework for establishing a rules-based regional order in the Indo-Pacific region. Although it was after India’s withdrawal from the RCEP negotiations, Japan further emphasised the importance of RCEP as the measure to sustain and foster the rule-based regional order and simultaneously pursued the conclusion of negotiations and the establishment of high-level rules, achieving some success. Ultimately, the havoc brought about by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the sense of crisis in the traditional liberal international order caused by the intensifying strategic competition between the US and China, drove the conclusion of RCEP. RCEP will be increasingly important for economic order in Japan and Asia in the coming years. Ironically, as the strategic competition between the US and China escalates and leads to a surge in protectionism, the economic and strategic importance of RCEP – an FTA that incorporates China – is becoming more significant as a measure to counter unilateralism and protectionism. In addition, RCEP needs elements that address globalisation’s adverse effects and pitfalls, in areas such as the environment, labour rights, and a reduction in the disparity between the rich and poor.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Japan and Asia
6. RCEP Services Liberalisation: Key Features and Implications
- Author:
- Ramonette B. Serafica and Intan Murnira Ramli
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- The Trade in Services Chapter of the RCEP Agreement establishes the rules for the progressive liberalisation of trade in the region and sets out regulatory disciplines to mitigate barriers to competition. Considered the most significant feature of the RCEP agreement compared to other FTAs of ASEAN is the scheduling of market access commitments using the negative list approach. Thus, an immediate challenge for members that initially adopted the positive list is the transition to the negative list scheduling approach. Furthermore, members will need to implement competitive and robust regulations in liberalising services. Developing countries, especially LDCs, might also face capacity constraints to fully take advantage of the market access given by the RCEP partners.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, Liberalism, and Progressivism
- Political Geography:
- Asia and ASEAN
7. Potential Impact of RCEP and Structural Transformation on Cambodia
- Author:
- Shandre Mugan Thangavelu and Vutha Hing
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the potential impact of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on the Cambodian economy in terms of trade, output growth, and employment. It also provides quantitative (structural gravity model estimation and simulation) and qualitative trade policy evaluation in terms of exports, output, and the structural transformation of the economy in global and regional value chains. The results highlight the importance of RCEP for the pandemic and post-pandemic recovery and the structural transformation of the Cambodian economy. The paper also provides key policy recommendations to fully maximise the benefits of RCEP for Cambodia for inclusive and sustainable growth.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Global Value Chains
- Political Geography:
- Asia and Cambodia
8. The Implications of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) for Asian Regional Architecture
- Author:
- Shiro Armstrong and Peter Drysdale
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- East Asia’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into force in 2022 as the world’s largest free trade agreement. RCEP was concluded, signed and brought into force in the face of major international uncertainty and is a significant boost to the global trading system. RCEP brings Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand into the same agreement with the ten member ASEAN group at its centre. It keeps markets open and updates trade and investment rules in East Asia, a major centre of global economic activity, at a time of rising protectionism when the WTO itself is under threat. The agreement builds on ASEAN’s free trade agreements and strengthens ASEAN centrality. One of the pillars of RCEP is an economic cooperation agenda which has its antecedents in ASEAN’s approach to bringing along its least developed members and builds on the experience of capacity building in APEC and technical cooperation under the ASEAN Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. There is an opportunity to create a framework that facilitates deeper economic cooperation that involves experience-sharing, extending RCEP’s rules and membership at the same time as strengthening political cooperation. The paper suggests some areas that might be best suited to cooperation — that is confidence and trust building instead of or before negotiation — and discusses how non-members such as India may be engaged and the membership expanded. Options such as multilateralising provisions and becoming a platform for policy convergence and coordinating unilateral reforms are canvassed.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Architecture
- Political Geography:
- Asia and ASEAN
9. Restrictiveness of RCEP Rules of Origin: Implications for Global Value Chains in East Asia
- Author:
- Archanun Kohpaiboon and Juthatip Jongwanich
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- This chapter aims to examine the restrictiveness of rules of origin (RoO) in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and other key multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) in East Asia with a view to facilitating the operations of existing global value chains (GVCs). The analysis begins with dissecting PSRs in the RoO Chapter in these FTAs and quantifying them. The key finding is that product-specific rules in RCEP are the most flexible compared to the other multilateral FTAs and more facilitative to GVC operations. This is driven by RCEP-specific features, such as high intra-member trade and the member coverage. The main policy inference is that a full cumulation clause is needed in RCEP to allow a regional value content alternative to be in full effect. Harmonisation in RoO provision across these multilateral FTAs remains a challenge for ongoing negotiation. Monitoring the dynamics of RoO as well as the FTA utilisation is needed so that these multilateral FTAs could be a true stepping stone for trade liberalisation in the broader World Trade Organization multilateral trading system.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Global Value Chains
- Political Geography:
- Asia and ASEAN
10. Centrality and Community: ASEAN in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
- Author:
- Soo Yeon Kim
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) role in the formation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement. The RCEP project proceeded as trade governance has shifted from the multilateral trade regime under the World Trade Organization to free trade agreements and where the geopolitics of Asia has cast a shadow on the progress of regional integration efforts. The analysis in this paper focuses on ASEAN centrality, both as a concept and practice, in influencing the launch and progress of RCEP. Conceptually, ASEAN centrality is about the capacity of the 10-member group to help launch negotiations for the RCEP agreement and to shape its provisions for governing trade. In practice, the RCEP agreement consolidates and significantly unravels the numerous overlapping trade agreements between ASEAN, 38 in all between individual ASEAN members and its five RCEP partners, Australia, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand. The paper also examines the relationship between the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and RCEP. RCEP provides for further tariff liberalisation between ASEAN members and its five RCEP partners and thus expands the zone of preferential treatment for goods exported from ASEAN and other RCEP members. RCEP also consolidates rules of origin requirements under one agreement, providing for diagonal cumulation and common rules of cumulation for agreement partners. The RCEP provisions can greatly facilitate production and trade along regional supply chains, thus accelerating the progress of the AEC as a single market and production base. Moving forwards, RCEP and ASEAN’s place in it, is likely to be shaped by challenges and opportunities from the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership and the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) initiative. The ASEAN members with overlapping membership in the IPEF and RCEP will be pivotal in determining areas of cooperation. Regional integration will thus continue to be shaped by ASEAN centrality, and its progress will shape the ASEAN community.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Asia and ASEAN