The Senate’s last session under the 18th Congress came to a close on 1 June, 2022 with no mention, deliberation, and ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
On 1 January 2022, the world's largest trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), came into force. RCEP is a trade agreement involving the 10- member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their largest free trade agreement (FTA) partners, namely China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
Chinese investors have allocated more than US$2 trillion to overseas investment and construction in the past decade and a half.
Donald Trump has left the White House, but Trumpism has not left United States (US) politics. With Joe Biden as America’s president, the world hopes that the US will shift away from Trump’s disruptive confrontational approach toward China relations and embark on a path of pragmatic engagement. At stake is whether this crucial bilateral relationship serves to strengthen or shatter the global order.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused prolonged socio-economic disruptions in the ASEAN region, exposing fundamental weaknesses and vulnerabilities in various sectors.
When President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated next week, he will quickly move to transform most dimensions of United States (US) policy. A glaring exception is China.
This year has been a tough one for most people. It is definitely a year to remember, and like many others – we’re ready to close this chapter and move on to 2021.
Asia is a technological force to be reckoned with.
Last month, 15 Asia-Pacific countries signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The occasion marked what might be the most significant economic achievement since the COVID-19 crisis began. And yet the RCEP – or, indeed, Asia – cannot save the ailing multilateral trading system alone.
The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on 15 November, 2020 marks a milestone for East Asian regionalism. It shows ASEAN’s determination to unify existing ASEAN+1 trade agreements and to showcase the bloc’s central role in regional cooperation. As former Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa noted recently, the RCEP was “a response by ASEAN leaders to a series of initiatives that did not provide for ASEAN centrality”.
In future history books, 2020 will be known as the year of the great COVID-19 pandemic, and rightly so. But it will also be remembered as the year when United States (US) President Donald Trump’s vile tenure was brought to an end.
The recent signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between ASEAN and five Asia-Pacific countries (China, Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand) has created the world’s largest free-trade zone that covers about a third of the world’s population and accounts for about 30 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).The European Union (EU) is not a signatory to RCEP, but is paying close attention to it.
