RCEP lays foundation for win-win trade

Before and after its establishment, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership has faced many an obstacle and criticism. The main criticism is that China's intention behind helping establish the RCEP is to exploit and control the Association of Southeast Asian Nations politically and economically. But actually the worst challenge to the RCEP has come from the United States－in the form of the Trans-Pacific Partnership proposed by former president Barack Obama.

To begin with, the TPP excluded China, the second-largest economy not only in the Asia-Pacific but also the world, and included only four of the 10 ASEAN member states－Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.

The TPP was an affront to ASEAN in that it violated the very principle of its establishment, that is, rejecting any politicization within ASEAN, especially in terms of trade－and excluding the largest ASEAN economy and a Pacific country in the true sense of the term: Indonesia.