The RCEP and regional trade

By Dr Jeffrey Wilson

With the Trans-Pacific Partnership on the brink of collapse, many now view the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as a potential replacement. However, RCEP offers a radically different model for trade multilateralism. It promises a lower level of reform ambition, and offers a membership model in which China is the leader and lynchpin of Asian regionalism. As RCEP moves to completion in 2017, it may usher in an historic shift from an Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific regional economic order.

This publication was prepared by Dr Jeffrey Wilson, Research Fellow at the Perth USAsia Centre.