IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eab/tradew/23200.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Free Trade Area Of The Asia- Pacific : A Constructive Approach To Multilateralizing Asian Regionalism

Author

Listed:
  • C. Fred Bergsten

    (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI))

  • Marcus Noland
  • Jeffrey J. Schott

Abstract

This paper examines the prospect of realizing regional economic integration via the mechanism of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). The FTAAP initiative represents a politically ambitious, high potential benefit option for achieving Asian regional integration. Among its desirable attributes, the FTAAP initiative could help revive and promote a successful conclusion of the Doha Round negotiations; constitute a “Plan B†hedge if Doha fails; short-circuit the further proliferation of bilateral and sub-regional preferential agreements that create substantial new discrimination and discord within the Asia-Pacific region; defuse the renewed risk of “drawing a line down the middle of the Pacific†as East Asian, and perhaps the Western Hemisphere, initiatives produce disintegration of the Asia-Pacific region rather than the integration of that broader region that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was created to foster; channel the People’s Republic of China (PRC)-United States economic conflict into a more constructive and less confrontational context; and revitalize APEC, which is of enhanced importance because of the prospects for Asia-Pacific and especially the PRC-US fissures. An incremental approach to the FTAAP, explicitly embodying enforceable reciprocal commitments, offers the best hope delivering on the concept’s abundant benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • C. Fred Bergsten & Marcus Noland & Jeffrey J. Schott, 2011. "The Free Trade Area Of The Asia- Pacific : A Constructive Approach To Multilateralizing Asian Regionalism," Trade Working Papers 23200, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:eab:tradew:23200
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eaber.org/node/23200
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. C. Fred Bergsten & Bates Gill & Nicholas R. Lardy, 2006. "China: The Balance Sheet What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number pa04648, October.
    2. Tingsong Jiang & Warwick McKibbin, 2009. "What Does a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific Mean to China?," Chapters, in: Chunlai Chen (ed.), China’s Integration with the Global Economy, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Richard E. Baldwin, 2011. "Multilateralising Regionalism: Spaghetti Bowls as Building Blocks on the Path to Global Free Trade," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "Assessing China's exchange rate regime [‘Working with the IMF to strengthen exchange rate surveillance’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 22(51), pages 576-627.
    5. Gary Cylde Hufbauer & Sjamsu Rahardja, 2007. "Toward a US-Indonesia Free Trade Agreement," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number pa83, October.
    6. Manchin, Miriam & Pelkmans-Balaoing, Annette O., 2008. "Clothes without an Emperor: Analysis of the preferential tariffs in ASEAN," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 213-223, June.
    7. Mary E. Burfisher & Sherman Robinson & Karen Thierfelder, 2001. "The Impact of NAFTA on the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 125-144, Winter.
    8. C. Fred Bergsten, 2005. "The United States and the World Economy: Foreign Economic Policy for the Next Decade," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 3802, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Perez-Restrepo, Camilo & Roldan-Perez, Adriana, 2016. "Is the Pacific Alliance a Potential Pathway to the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific?," Philippine Journal of Development PJD 2014-2015 Vol. 41-42 , Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    2. Ekaterina Y. ARAPOVA, 2017. "Ex-Post Analysis Of The Influence Of Tariff Liberalisation On Asean Exports," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 17(2), pages 135-154.
    3. Grochowska, Renata & Kosior, Katarzyna, 2013. "Agricultural policies in the context of regional and global food security concerns – the case of the Asian region," Problems of World Agriculture / Problemy Rolnictwa Światowego, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, vol. 13(28), pages 1-9, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Calum Brown & Dave Murray-Rust & Jasper van Vliet & Shah Jamal Alam & Peter H Verburg & Mark D Rounsevell, 2014. "Experiments in Globalisation, Food Security and Land Use Decision Making," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Andreas Lendle, 2007. "The ASEAN Free Trade Agreement - Building Bloc or Stumbling Bloc for Multilateral Trade Liberalization?," IHEID Working Papers 23-2007, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    3. Amelia U. Santos‐Paulino & Alisa DiCaprio & Maria V. Sokolova, 2019. "The development trinity: How regional integration impacts growth, inequality and poverty," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(7), pages 1961-1993, July.
    4. Woohyoung Kim, 2010. "A Study on the Feasibility of an FTAAP and Korea's Strategy," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 281-302, June.
    5. Jarreau, Joachim & Poncet, Sandra, 2012. "Export sophistication and economic growth: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 281-292.
    6. Ganeshan Wignaraja, 2013. "Regional Trade Agreements and Enterprises in Southeast Asia," Trade Working Papers 23718, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    7. Olivier Cadot & Lili Yan Ing, 2016. "How Restrictive Are ASEAN's Rules of Origin?," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 15(3), pages 115-134, Fall.
    8. Onder, Harun, 2012. "Trade and Climate Change: An Analytical Review of Key Issues," World Bank - Economic Premise, The World Bank, issue 86, pages 1-8, August.
    9. Garth Frazer & Johannes Van Biesebroeck, 2010. "Trade Growth under the African Growth and Opportunity Act," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 128-144, February.
    10. Richard Pomfret & Uwe Kaufmann & Christopher Findlay, 2010. "Are Preferential Tariffs Utilized? Evidence from Australian Imports, 2000-9," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2010-13, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    11. Arndt Sven W., 2012. "Stabilization Policy in an Economy with Two Exchange Rate Regimes," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 1-15, June.
    12. Zakaria Sorgho, 2016. "RTAs' Proliferation and Trade-diversion Effects: Evidence of the ‘Spaghetti Bowl’ Phenomenon," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 285-300, February.
    13. Nathalie Jorzik & Frank Mueller‐Langer, 2020. "Multilateral stability and efficiency of trade agreements: A network formation approach," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 355-370, February.
    14. International Monetary Fund, 2017. "Cluster Report: Trade Integration in Latin America and the Caribbean," IMF Staff Country Reports 2017/066, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Cristian Spiridon, 2012. "Trade Liberalisation In Europe And The Rest Of The World," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 4(3), pages 407-418, September.
    16. Los, Bart & Timmer, Marcel & Vries, Gaaitzen J. de, 2013. "Made in Europe? Trends in International Production Fragmentation," GGDC Research Memorandum GD-131, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    17. Patricia Garcia-Duran & Montserrat Millet, 2015. "Efficient multilateralism or bilateralism? The TTIP from an EU Trade Policy perspective," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2015/321, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    18. Amna Nazeer & Wu Jun & Khuram Shafi & Liu Yan Yan, 2015. "Fluctuation of Yuan/Dollar: Time Series Co Integration Analysis," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 5(1), pages 317-326, January.
    19. Riccardo Crescenzi & Simona Iammarino, 2017. "Global investments and regional development trajectories: the missing links," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 97-115, January.
    20. Julián Tole Martínez, 2019. "Colombia entre los TLC y la OMC: ¿liberación o administración del comercio internacional?," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1139, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regional Economic Integration; free trade area; the Asia-Pacific; Asian regionalism; APEC;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eab:tradew:23200. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shiro Armstrong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaberau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.