East Asia Forum Quarterly: Volume 14, Number 1, 2022

Abstract

Economic cooperation in East Asia has progressed in its own distinct way. Unlike Europe with its customs union and supranational authority in Brussels and North America with its treaty-led integration, ASEAN and the economic powerhouses of China, Japan, and South Korea to its north have pursued non-binding regional cooperation turning the region into a global manufacturing hub. The steady success that has come from taking time to forge consensus and helping the laggards along stands in contrast to the retreat to protectionism in the United States and the fracture of the Europe Union with Brexit. ASEAN has managed to bring its free trade partners together into an East Asia-wide economic agreement. The conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in November in 2019 at a time of global turbulence is also a huge achievement of strategic significance in pushing back against the threats to the multilateral system. RCEP is the world’s largest regional pact in terms of GDP, trade volume, foreign direct investment and population. New market opening and rules are locked in. Bringing RCEP into force is not the end point, but the start of an elevated process of regional integration for ASEAN and its partners. This issue of East Asia Forum Quarterly looks at RCEP going forward. India walked away from the deal at the last moment but proactively engaging New Delhi, perhaps eventually as a member, is important for trans-Asian economic integration. The low-cost manufacturing that brought prosperity to China cannot be absorbed by Southeast Asia alone and is an opportunity for India and its neighbours too. The next phase of Asian economic cooperation is deepening integration and RCEP provides a framework for dealing with issues beyond those already negotiated. There’s a significant security payoff from the agreement too, by wrapping major economies in more interdependence. In Southeast Asia economic integration is a valued source of security. RCEP provides another framework for Southeast Asia to manage relations with China. It can do the same for Australia. How RCEP engages the United States will matter, as will the US response, to managing economic and political relations across the Pacific. Democracy and growth in Asia, Nepal’s strategic position in Asian geopolitics, and living with COVID-19 in Southeast Asia are this issue’s highlights in the Asian Review section.