Trade and the Indo-Pacific: CPTPP, BRI & RCEP

Will the future of globalization be decided by events in the Indo-Pacific?

Moderator:
Rem Korteweg, Senior Research Fellow, Clingendael Institute

Speakers:
Vasuki Shastry, Associate Fellow, Asia Pacific Programme, Chatham House
Deborah Elms, Founder and Executive Director of the Asian Trade Centre
Tetsuya Watanabe, Vice President, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry,RIETI

This podcast episode was recorded on May 20, 2021

The AIG Global Trade Series 2021 examines the ongoing transformation of the world’s multilateral trading system.

RCEP and CPTPP will redefine trade integration across Asia. Although the pandemic has exposed the strength of protectionist reflexes around the globe, these two major multilateral free trade agreements act as a powerful counterargument to suggestions of a deglobalized ‘new normal’.

In this podcast, moderator Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute is joined by Deborah Elms, Founder and Executive Director of the Asian Trade Centre; Vasuki Shastry, Associate Fellow, Asia Pacific Programme, Chatham House; and Tetsuya Watanabe, Vice President, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). Listen as they discuss whether RCEP and CPTPP compete, complement or overlap.

In addition to RCEP and CPTPP, China’s Belt & Road Initiative is transforming trade flows in the region and beyond. With India opting out of RCEP, what does that mean in the regional power struggle between India and China? And as the US figures out how to deal with a rising China in the coming decade, will pulling out of TPP prove to be both a missed economic as well as geostrategic opportunity?

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