Last month, 15 countries signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a landmark Indo-Pacific trade deal designed to “create new employment opportunities, raise living standards, and improve the general welfare of their peoples.” The original impetus for negotiations came from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which contributes 10 of the partnership’s members. But around 80 percent of the new bloc’s combined $25 trillion GDP comes from just two countries: China and Japan. Another $3 trillion comes from ASEAN, and the remainder from South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.
Is the RCEP big? Yes. Is it meaningful? No. Liberal internationalists may take encouragement from the signing of a new trade deal—any trade deal—in the current global climate. But the RCEP is a straight tariff-reduction agreement at a time when base tariffs are already low, and countries don’t hesitate to impose punitive tariffs whenever it suits their foreign-policy objectives. The RCEP says virtually nothing about economic governance, and even its trade provisions are unenforceable. It avoids difficult issues like government subsidies, government procurement, theft of intellectual property, and investor-state dispute settlement. Labor standards aren’t even mentioned. Agricultural trade is largely exempt. The RCEP truly is a China-style trade agreement: platitudinous and ineffective.
