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

C. Fred Bergsten, Marcus Noland and Jeffrey Schott

Governance Working Papers from East Asian Bureau of Economic Research

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.

Keywords: Regional Economic Integration; free trade area; the Asia-Pacific; Asian regionalism; APEC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O16 O53 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: The Free Trade Area Of The Asia- Pacific: A Constructive Approach To Multilateralizing Asian Regionalism (2011)
Working Paper: The Free Trade Area Of The Asia-Pacific: A Constructive Approach To Multilateralizing Asian Regionalism (2011)
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