The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: New Paradigm or Old Wine in a New Bottle?

Abstract

ASEAN is currently negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement with its six trading partners. The RCEP has the potential to expand into a Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) as it intends to harmonise rules and regulations across multiple overlapping trade agreements in the region. However, it faces challenges. The mention of a flexibility principle and the “ASEAN Way” of decision-making has led many to believe that the RCEP will be yet another low-quality trade agreement in the region. As such, the RCEP presents all ASEAN members an opportunity to take a central role in setting the agenda for a region-wide agreement. Hence, ASEAN must make efforts to attain an attractive RCEP vis-à-vis other competing regional agreements. Accordingly, this paper highlights what the RCEP is, how it has emerged and the issues that might affect the agreement’s final quality in order to evaluate it as a new paradigm or a repackaged version of ASEAN’s existing trade agreements.