Abstract
This chapter locates the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) within the wider Chinese blueprint for regional governance in Asia. It highlights how the agreement, especially after the American abandonment of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), become functional to the Chinese image of potential regional leader and key supporter of free trade and economic globalization. The chapter looks at the likely content of the agreement underlying how key provisions of the RCEP will be represent a compromise between the objective of promoting China’s centrality in the region, the need to overcome non-tariff barriers to trade, and the necessity to promote Beijing’s interests and normative orientation. The chapter underlines how the RCEP will particularly protect the Chinese capacity to use State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as instrument of economic and political influence.
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Notes
- 1.
Behind the border regulations refers to the need to harmonize domestic regulatory standards to lower non-tariff barriers to trade . Generally promoting, monitoring and enforcing common regulatory standards in entails accepting forms of governance that erode the national economic sovereignty , limiting a state’s capacity to decide on several rules and regulations.
- 2.
ROOs are the criteria needed to determine the national source of a product: namely, where a product “actually” comes from. They are relevant because they duties and tariffs are applied according the country of origin. Methods and rules applied to establish the origin of a product vary greatly. If a product consists of components that are from more than one country, the criterion of substantial transformation is used to confer origin. Accordingly, the origin of the product is determined to be the last place in which it was “substantially transformed”. However, determining what constitutes a substantial change can be quite complex. On the role of ROOs in multilateral trade agreements, see Estevadeordal et al. (2009).
- 3.
This percentage is calculated with different methods that are also under negotiations. Here we don’t deal with the different methods. Details about these methods are beyond the scope of this chapter.
- 4.
For this reason, advocacy groups such Medicins Sans Frontiers have warned against the way in which IP is protected in the RCEP .
- 5.
A dispute settlement mechanism refers to the presence of an independent organ of an international institution that has the right and the duty to settle disputes when a member considers the behaviour of another member contrary to the rules of the organization or the agreement in question. The main example of functioning dispute settlement mechanism is the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization.
- 6.
SASAC , the State-owned Asset Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, is the special commission that controls national level SOEs.
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Dian, M., Menegazzi, S. (2018). The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). In: New Regional Initiatives in China’s Foreign Policy . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75505-2_5
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