Premier envisions finishing RCEP talks
China hopes to finalize negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in 2019 to reach a high-level and mutually beneficial free trade pact, Premier Li Keqiang said on Tuesday in Singapore.
The RCEP, which covers nearly half the world’s population and one-third of global trade, has made substantial progress in its negotiations this year, Li told about 500 participants at the 44th Singapore Lecture in the Southeast Asian city state.
The mechanism is based on World Trade Organization rules and is beneficial to regional economic integration, and China will work with other countries to conclude the negotiations based on mutual benefit, Li said.
The global economy and geopolitical conditions are facing complexity and increasing uncertainty, and peace and poverty relief efforts on the world’s stage have benefited from multilateralism, the rules-based international order and free trade, Li said. He urged firm adherence to multilateralism and resorting to dialogue to peacefully resolve differences and conflicts under the principles of mutual respect, win-win cooperation and equality for all countries.
China advocates free trade and also fair trade, the premier said. Problems arising from globalization and free trade should be treated in the perspective of long-term development and solved with further reforms and adjustments. However, fundamental rules of multilateralism and free trade should not be violated, he said.
Li reiterated that China will open its door even wider and welcomes Singapore and other ASEAN countries to expand their investments in the world’s second-largest economy.
China has made remarkable progress in the 40 years since it adopted reform and opening-up, and has been the largest single contributor to the global economy since the 2008 global financial crisis, Singaporean Vice-Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said before Li’s speech.
Teo said many Chinese companies go abroad to seek new markets, and the country is influential in global development. He said escalating protectionism poses a threat to the multilateral trading system, but China and Singapore enjoy close cooperation and are building a new international land-sea corridor, linking western China and Southeast Asia.
China and Singapore signed a protocol to upgrade their free trade agreement on Monday, witnessed by Li and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Meanwhile, Li stressed that China firmly adheres to peaceful development and upholds friendship with neighboring countries. China would like to work with ASEAN members to reach a code of conduct in the South China Sea within three years, Li said.
In his speech addressing a business forum in Singapore on Tuesday, Premier Li Keqiang struck a resonant note on multilateralism, stressing that the world should not shun the principles of multilateralism and free trade, and neither does it need to reinvent the wheel. Indeed, with some countries embracing unilateralism and protectionism, the world needs to shore up the spirit of multilateralism and win-win cooperation more than ever. In this regard, it is heartening to see Li and other regional leaders attending the series of meetings on East Asia cooperation in Singapore this week showing a shared commitment to regional cooperation and integration.
Like the other parts of the world, East Asia has been a beneficiary of globalization. The blueprint of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for building the ASEAN Economic Community, with the support of its regional partners including China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, is itself a reflection of the region’s desire to ride the wave of globalization and free trade.
ASEAN’s community building, together with various other regional economic cooperation vehicles that have been established, have formed a launchpad for countries in the region to pursue a much more ambitious goal — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
The negotiations on the RCEP have quickened since last year after the Donald Trump administration pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The RCEP is widely perceived as an antidote to the TPP, which was originally championed by the US and deliberately excluded the participation of big countries such as China and India. The RCEP would form the world’s largest economic bloc, covering nearly half of the global economy, and thus would firmly anchor the multilateral trading system.
Significant progress is expected to be made in the complex negotiations this week, and the 16 countries, including China, Japan, India and the 10 members of ASEAN, are expected to finalize the deal next year. Such a desirable achievement would be instrumental in fending off the headwinds of trade protectionism and unilateralism, and would “deliver real benefits to people in the region”, as Li said.
The efforts to realize the RCEP, along with concurrent efforts to facilitate talks on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, show the region is standing together to reject a beggar-thy-neighbor approach in favor of equitable and rule-based free trade and international cooperation that helps each country and its neighbors to prosper alike.