Backpedaling of APEC Foretells New Turn in Global Economy and Trade

 Backpedaling of APEC Foretells New Turn in Global Economy and Trade

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

November 13, 2017

 Translation of an Excerpt

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is a lavish party; leaders of various countries exchange pleasantries, gaining something from each other, with no harm but benefits politically. Nevertheless, APEC, as a mechanism for promoting of economic and trade liberalization, has gradually become ineffective. At meetings in recent years, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement countries met on the sidelines of the forum, talking about higher standards for free trade. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement countries dilly-dallied at the meeting, thinking about the issues on their own minds; APEC has become an empty shell.

However, after the United States withdrew from TPP, the 11 countries headed by Japan have continued to promote this agreement; this time, it has adopted the wording “Comprehensive and Progressive,” becoming CPTPP, and is scheduled to enter into effect next spring. At the same time, the leaders of 16 countries, including the Philippines, China, India, Japan and South Korea, will also declare that RCEP has made significant progress. This economy, representing a quarter of the world, will reduce tariffs. We must ask, will Taiwan end up with joining neither?

The APEC meeting this time may be a new turning point for the global economy and trade. Trump has rejected, in a clear-cut manner, multilateral trade liberalization. In the future, will the US be willing to continue participating in APEC? What attitude will it take? These are all important questions. In contrast, Mainland China President Xi Jinping has emphasized at the meeting that, as the world's second-largest economy, China knows full-well the responsibilities on its own shoulders and will cooperate in erecting an open-style Asia-Pacific economy, adding the advocacy of the One Belt and Road Initiative originated from China but belongs to the world and remains open to all partners. Originally, there was no new significance in these words, but this time Xi Jinping spoke them following Trump's negative attitude, so they seemed to have a morale-stabilizing effect.

The post-war world order was designed by the US; now that the United States is no longer willing to lead, someone else will replace it. At that time, the world order will no longer be what we have been familiar with. As a beneficiary of free trade, Taiwan cannot but be concerned by the changes of this new turn. This is far more important than how many camera flashes our leader representative won at APEC. 

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