Looking at ASEAN Centrality in the Amidst of TPP & RCEP Mega-Regional Competition
Abstract
This paper attempts to understand the progressivity of economic regionalism in Southeast Asia. Unlike previous researches, this paper will explain how the complexity of Southeast Asia region affecting liberalism in ASEAN. This can be seen from how the mega-regional competition between TPP and RCEP hinders ASEAN centrality, signified by the fact that Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei chose to participate in both cooperation, despite knowing that RCEP should be part of ASEAN centrality agenda. This paper will pay attention on two types of condition: (1) understanding the transformation into mega-regional partnership in Asia-Pacific; (2) understanding the decision of four ASEAN countries who choose to participate in both mega-regional models. The theory which will be used in this paper will be the ‘new trade strategy’ developed by Aggarwal and Lee (2011). In the end, this paper finds that there is a renewal in perception, interest, and domestic institution in the creation of RCEP and TPP. Meanwhile, the decision of Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei to participate in both RCEP and TPP is the result of rational calculation in terms of economic advantage, political economy, domestic structure improvement, and security. These four calculations can be seen in all country, especially those who utilize greater economic liberalization.
References
Aggarwal, V. K., & Lee, S. (2011). The Domestic Political Economy of Preferential Trade Agreements in the Asia-Pacific. In V. K. Aggarwal, & S. Lee, Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific: The Role of Ideas, Interests, and Domestic Institutions (pp. 1-25). New York: Springer.
Aggarwal, V. K., & Lee, S. (2011). The domestic political economy of preferential free trade agreements in. In V. K. Aggawrwal, & S. Lee, Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific: The Role of Ideas, Interests and Domestic Institutions (pp. 1-25). London: Springer.
ASEAN . (2016). ASEAN Economic Com-munity: Chartbook 2016. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat.
ASEAN. (2016). ASEAN Economic Comm-unity Chartbook 2016. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat.
Capling, A. (2008). Australia's Trade Poli-cy Dilemmas. Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 62 (2), 229-244.
Capling, A., & Ravenhill, J. (2011). Multilateralising Regionalism: What Role for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?. The Pacific Review, Vol. 24 (5), 553-575.
Charlermpalanupap, T. (2014). Understan-ding the ASEAN Centrality. ASEAN Insights, Vol. 4.
Dent, C. (2010). Free Trade Agreements in the Asia-Pacific a Decade on: Evaluating the Past, Looking to the Future. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 10 (2), 201-245.
Desker, B. (2004). In Defence of FTAs: From Purity to Pragmatism in East Asia. The Pacific Review, Vol. 17 (1), 3-26.
Higgot, R. (2004). US Foreign Policy and the Securitization of Economic Globalization. International Politi-cs, Vol. 41 (2), 147-175.
MacDonald, S. B., & Lemco, J. (2011). Asia's Rise in the 21st Century. California: Praeger.
NEAT China. (2014). Accelerating the RCEP Process Through Stregthening the APT Cooperation. Beijing: NEAT Working Group.
Petri, P. A., & Plummer, M. G. (2014). ASEAN Centrality and the ASEAN-US Economic Relationship. Honolulu: East-West Center.
Ravenhill, J. (2004). Trade politics in East Asia . In B. Hocking, & StevenMcGuire, Trade Politics (2nd Edition) (pp. 51-62). London: Routledge.
Ravenhill, J. (2008). The Move to Preferential Trade on the Western Pacific Rim: Some Initial Conclusions. Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 62 (2), 129-150.
Soesastro, H. (1995). The Asia Pacific Region on the Threshold of 21st Century: Trends and Goals. The Indonesian Quarterly, Vol. 23 (4), 313-322.
Thangavelu, S. M., & Toh, M.-H. (2005). Bilateral ‘WTO-Plus’ Free Trade Agreements: The WTO Trade Policy Review of Singapore 2004. World Economy, Vol. 28 (9) , 1211-1228.
Zainal, M., & Rosli, F. (2013). Infrastru-cture Development In ASEAN. In S. B. Das (Ed.), ASEAN Economic Community Scorecard (pp. 136-162). Singapore: ISEAS.
Website
ADB. (2017, May 15). Asian Regional Integration Centre FTA Database. Retrieved from http://aric.adb. org/FTAbyCountryAll.php.
Bhagwati, J. N. (2017, May 21). America's Threat to Trans-Pacific Trade. Retrieved from https://www.pro ject-syndicate.org /commentary /america-s-threat-to-trans-pacific-trade.
Kenechi, K. (2017, May 25). Determining Priority Among EPAs: Which trading partner has the greatest economic impact?. Retrieved from RIETI: http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/ columns/a01_0318.html.
Kenechi, K. (2017, May 25). Determining Priority Among EPAs: Which trading partner has the greatest economic impact?. Retrieved from http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/columns/a01_0318.html.
RCEP. (2017, May 16). Guiding Principles and Objectives for Negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Econo-mic Partnership. Retrieved from http://www.asean.org/images /2012/documents/Guiding%20Principles%20and%20Objectives%20for%20Negotiating%20the%20Regional%20Comprehensive%20Economic%20Partnership.pdf.
Statista. (2018, May 12). ASEAN Countries: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Per Capita in Current Prices from 2008 to 2018 (In U.S. Dollars). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/804307/gross-domestic-product-gdp-per-capita-in-the-asean-countries/.
TPP. (2017, May 16). Enhancing Trade and Investment, Supporting Jobs, Economic Growth and Develop-ment: Outlines of The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Retrieved from https://www.dfat.gov.au/fta/ tpp/111112-tpp-broad-outlines.html.
World Trade Organization. (2017, May 16). Regional Trade Agreements Database. Retrieved from http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/region_e.htm .
Copyright (c) 2022 Aspin Nur Arifin Rivai, Gema Ramadhan Bastari
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Vox Populi uses license CC-BY-NA-SA or equivalent license as the optimal license use for publication, distribution, use, and reuse of scientific works. To see the rules, you can look here; Indonesia or English.