How to prevent APEC from becoming divided
- By Cao Mingdi
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 30, 2014
Since its establishment in 1989, APEC has been deepening cooperation among the economies in the region through trade and investment liberalization and the economic and technological cooperation. In the past 20 years, trade and mutual investment among its member economies have been gradually rising. The average economic growth speed of its members is quicker than countries in other regions, making APEC the engine of global economic growth.
The top three economies - the United States, China and Japan - are all APEC members. If the Asia-Pacific region is prosperous, the world will be peaceful; and if the Asia-Pacific Region is on the rise, the world will be stable. APEC should be given more new functions:
-- Coordinating the interconnections in the Asia-Pacific Region. Although it has limited binding power, APEC can promote communication and exchanges among its member, improve their relationships and enhance their mutual trust so as to create better investment and financing, and a better political and security environment for regional economic development.
-- Connecting the Eurasia and the Pacific Rim regions. Driven by economic globalization, economic and political cooperation is developing rapidly in Eurasia, forming new partnerships in the area. At the same time, the center of the world affairs is shifting from the Atlantic region to the Pacific region. APEC happens to be at the joint zone of Eurasia and the Pacific Rim.
-- Exploring a way to transition from regional economic integration to global economic integration. Inside APEC, there is the TPP headed by the United States, the Sino-Japanese-South Korean Free Trade Agreement (FTA) headed by China, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been pushing China to join. Regional economic integration is being developed through multiple channels. APEC covers almost all the members in these FTAs. This avoids conflicts and confrontation and provides good opportunities for cooperation and dialogues.
On this basis, by promoting the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area , strengthening and coordinating the multilateral trade mechanism in the APEC framework, and combating trade protectionism, APEC can increase its regional economic integration level, gradually implement and perfect the principle of "recognizing diversity and stressing flexibility, progressivity and openness," and become a pilot for the transition from regional economic integration to global economic integration.
The writer is a researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.
The article was first published in Chinese and translated by Li Bin.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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