{"id":625,"date":"2022-04-15T22:20:50","date_gmt":"2022-04-16T05:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/?p=625"},"modified":"2022-04-15T22:22:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-16T05:22:53","slug":"quashed-tpp-leads-to-important-asian-regional-free-trade-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/quashed-tpp-leads-to-important-asian-regional-free-trade-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Quashed TPP Leads to Important Asian Regional Free Trade Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By Yuki Taylor<\/strong><\/em>
Law Student Editor<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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On January 1, 2022, East Asia\u2019s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement entered into force<\/a> for Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.\u00a0 With delayed ratification, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Malaysia became participants to the comprehensive economic alliance as of February 1 and March 18, respectively.\u00a0 12 countries out of 15 original signatories thus far have joined the world\u2019s largest free trade agreement (FTA).\u00a0<\/p>

The RCEP, as a modern and comprehensive FTA, consists of 20 chapters, covering all aspects of cross-border economic activities<\/a> including trade in goods and services, trade remedies, investment, and intellectual property.\u00a0 The Agreement was concluded in November 2020, following nine years of preparations and negotiations initiated by the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) leadership upon a mutual proposal submitted by China and Japan in November 2011.\u00a0 The FTA alliance was blueprinted on the so-called ASEAN plus 6, consisting of 10 ASEAN member states, three Far East nations, i.e., China, Japan, and South Korea, and three additional neighboring states, i.e., Australia, New Zealand, and India.<\/p>

The RCEP negotiations assumed urgency after the failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) among Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States, together comprising 40 % of the global economy.\u00a0 The TPP was signed in February 2016<\/a> during the Obama administration.\u00a0 But, soon after in January 2017, President Trump announced U.S. withdrawal from the pact<\/a>, essentially paving a way for China to join the negotiations.<\/p>

India exited<\/a> the RCEP negotiations at the final stage in November 2019, complaining that the Agreement ultimately deviated from its original principles, particularly regarding safeguard measures.\u00a0 Additionally, three ASEAN countries\u2014Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar\u2014have not yet ratified the Agreement, although they signed as ASEAN states.\u00a0 Indonesia initially announced on the eve of the RCEP\u2019s entry into force that it would ratify the Agreement during the first quarter of 2022<\/a>, but it has so far failed to complete ratification.\u00a0 In the Philippines, the RCEP bill was deferred<\/a> by its senate in February 2022, after groups including farmers and fishers opposed the ratification.\u00a0<\/p>

As for Myanmar, ASEAN has excluded its current military cabinet since February 2021 following a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat which deposed the democratically elected members of the nation\u2019s ruling party, including Aung San Suu Kyi, then state counsellor.\u00a0 Myanmar has been technically blocked from joining RCEP.\u00a0 However, RCEP signatories have not been acting in concert.\u00a0 Even though it has not yet ratified, the Philippines announced the country would not accept the junta-led Myanmar as a RCEP partner<\/a>.\u00a0 New Zealand openly denounced the Myanmar government<\/a> and stated that it would not deal with the ASEAN nation under RCEP.<\/p>

Meanwhile, China and Thailand have been supportive of Myanmar\u2019s military-controlled government.\u00a0 On March 21, Thai customs announced that it would treat Myanmar as an FTA partner pursuant to RCEP retroactively as of January 1, 2022, when the estranged nation acquired its RCEP qualification.\u00a0 Prior to Thailand\u2019s preferential tariffs treatment, on March 15, Myanmar agreed to use the Thai baht as its official currency in border trade dealings<\/a>, aiming to reduce its reliance on the U.S. dollar.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

It is uncertain whether RCEP will build the economic alliance envisioned in the original negotiations, due to prolonged political crises and human rights abuses in Myanmar, and domestic resistance to RCEP in Indonesia and the Philippines.\u00a0 Nonetheless, RCEP has already created the world\u2019s largest free trade area, surpassing the EU in scale.\u00a0 With only its current ratifications, RCEP comprises the world\u2019s largest FTA in terms of both population and gross domestic product.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Yuki TaylorLaw Student Editor On January 1, 2022, East Asia\u2019s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement entered into force for Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Japan, Laos, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.\u00a0 With delayed ratification, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Malaysia became participants to the comprehensive economic alliance as of February […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[118,117,120,121,119,124,123,122],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.asucollegeoflaw.com\/ibt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}