China, Japan, ROK shoulder heavy responsibilities in FTA
- By Ni Yueju
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 8, 2015
The road to success never smooth
China, Japan and South Korea have officially carried out eight rounds of talks since the end of 2011 when they reached an agreement on the desirability of an FTA. However, the negotiations have made little progress.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), however, provides fresh impetus.
The successful example of TPP makes China realize that some of the rules of TPP represent the future direction of international trade. To accelerate reform, China must comply with the new trend of international trade rules. It therefore proposed an approach which combines "pre-establishment national treatment" with the "negative list" to carry out the trilateral FTA negotiations, showing its positive attitude.
As for Japan, participation in TPP will help it actively carry out the agricultural reform to adapt to an increasingly open market for agricultural products. The FTA between China and South Korea and closer economic and trade cooperation between the two countries have also intensified Japan's sense of urgency.
However, the three countries cannot reach the goal in one move. There is still wide discrepancy in views in terms of development levels and interests.
China hopes to take the China-South Korea FTA of "relatively high standard" as an example to reduce the difficulty and thus increase the efficiency in the trilateral FTA negotiations, while Japan firmly adheres to the "highest standard" of TPP which is far beyond China's reach. South Korea is full of apprehensions not only in the market of agricultural products, but also in the manufacturing industry involving automobiles and electronic products.
In addition, China imposes relatively high tariffs on Japanese cars, and the exemption of tariffs will undoubtedly expand the Japanese share in the Chinese market and thus pose a considerable challenge on China's auto industry.
But anyway, the trilateral summit helps the trilateral cooperation back to the right track, providing a good opportunity for the three countries to strengthen cooperation in various fields. Realization of FTA among China, Japan and South Korea is only a matter of time as long as all the three sides are in the spirit of facing up to the history and keeping the future in view.
The writer is a researcher of the Institute of World's Economy and Politics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The article was written in Chinese and translated by Li Jingrong.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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