Ten years ago, when the economies of China and Southeast Asia began to take off, ASEAN began to discuss how to establish a regional free trade organization, which would later be the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership". After nine years of arduous negotiations, an agreement was finally reached on November 15 last year, and the 10 ASEAN countries + 6 neighboring countries formed the world's largest free trade area. According to the agreement, January 1, 2022 is the time to enter into force, so far 10 countries have passed the audit, and will implement the content of the agreement starting next year, while India has chosen to withdraw. During the RCEP negotiations, the United States tried its best to prevent it, but it still did not stop Australia and Japan from seeking profits. In particular, Japan, this time it is considered to be a private "dark Chen Cang" with China, disguised the signing of the free trade agreement, so that the United States can not stop it.
According to the news on the website of the Ministry of Commerce on November 4, the ASEAN Secretariat, the custodian of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, issued an official announcement announcing that six ASEAN countries, including Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore and Brunei, and four non-ASEAN countries with China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia have reached the entry into force threshold of the agreement.
According to the agreement signed last year, on January 1, 2022, the agreement will first enter into force for the above 10 countries, and the remaining 6 countries will have to wait. The RCEP Agreement is currently the world's largest free trade area agreement, and once it comes into force, the whole of East Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific will become a whole, and low tariffs will greatly stimulate the circulation of goods in this region. Simply put, we will get cheaper in the future when we buy goods from these countries, and everyone will benefit from it.
After signing the agreement last year, India has been wavering left and right, hoping to profit from it on the one hand, and not having confidence in its own goods on the other. In the end, Modi chose the more conservative side, and India withdrew from the agreement. Many experts analyze why India should withdraw from the agreement from an economic point of view, and even say that India has its own ambitions, wants to build an economic system they dominate, and is not willing to follow China.
This is too much to overestimate India, a country that is indeed constantly thinking about comparing itself with China, but it lacks confidence. The rejection of RCEP is mainly the opposition of India's domestic interest groups, who are afraid that foreign commodities will hit the Indian market and are afraid of losing their jobs. Modi has the same concerns, a lack of confidence in Indian manufacturing, and does not want to face the difficulties. When China first joined the WTO, China's economy was not good, and China's manufacturing did not have the confidence it has now, but we chose to accept the challenge, which is the gap between China and India.
Although the RCEP is led by ASEAN, the two most satisfactory countries may be China and Japan. The China-Japan-ROK FTA has always been a plan supported by all three countries, especially the signing of a free trade agreement between China and Japan, which has great benefits for both countries. But this has not worked out, and the reason for this is the interference of the United States, the US government does not allow South Korea, Japan and China to sign a free trade agreement, and even rumors have taken some extraordinary measures.
Since they would not allow it to be signed separately, China and Japan thought of pulling more countries and muddying the water. The rcep free trade agreement is a multilateral trade agreement, and the signed countries automatically reach a "free trade chain" with other countries, and it is in this way that China and Japan have completed the transformation of signing a separate free trade agreement. After January 1, 2022, there will be no need for a China-Japan-Korea FTA at all.
The United States also thought about establishing a free trade area around the Pacific and completely isolating China, which was a good idea, but in the end, americans were still unwilling to "cut meat" to feed the surrounding countries. On the contrary, China and ASEAN have established such a large free trade area, and even Japan and Australia, the two most loyal "dog legs" of the United States, cannot resist the temptation. In international relations, interests are the most basic norms.