If the US Indo-Pacific strategy eventually becomes an economic strategy, it does not matter, but if it develops into a real mini-NATO in the military direction, then the RCEP will not be of much use,” said Cheng Yong-nian, director of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Global and Contemporary China at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), today.
Zheng Yongnian today at the Boao Forum for Asia “RCEP: Prospects and Impacts” panel to make these remarks. What role should each of the seven RCEP members, like Japan, play in the RCEP and the CPTPP? Will they be able to fulfill the commitments of the agreement?
Jung said that multilateralism is getting more and more, but also getting cheaper, the problem is how to implement it. The RCEP, in particular, has some countries that belong to the TPP, but recent developments are Japan bringing the U.S. factor (into it), and the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, which could easily digest the RCEP if it follows this U.S. trend.
Zheng Yongnian said, RCEP in the United States seems to be a system led by mainland China, India also did not join the RCEP, so although the RCEP has not yet begun, the mainland has a great challenge. The Asia-Pacific region has the need for economic and trade cooperation, and on the other hand, it faces a battle between two routes, namely the economic and trade route and the military route.
Zheng Yongnian said that if the Indo-Pacific strategy done by the United States eventually becomes an economic strategy, it does not matter, which has no relationship to RCEP competing with each other. What the U.S. does if it goes in the military direction and becomes a real small NATO, and actually made bigger than NATO, with a larger population and economic scale, then RCEP is not much use. A full-scale competition between China and the United States is already inevitable.
This is the theme of the Boao Forum for Asia conference “RCEP: Prospects and Implications”.
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