Research On The Realization Path Of Asia - Pacific Free Trade Area

Nowadays, the development process of the Doha round was slow, and global economic governance system showed a trend of flat, so economies seek to establish bilateral or plurilateral trade agreement, and global bilateral/regional trade and investment liberalization in full swing. At the same time, in the increasingly open era of globalization, through participation in cross-border production division of labor, economies enter into the regional production network, and the division of labor based on global value chain become the mainstream, and formed several different cross-border production networks around the world. And in contrast, in the Asia-pacific region, the mechanism of the regional economic integration is barely satisfactory. There are a lot of shortage, which seriously impacted on the regional economic cooperation and development. According to economies’own needs, they built a large number of regional Free Trade agreements, which have caused "spaghetti bowl effect" in the Asia-pacific region. So, a growing number of experts and scholars, government agencies, international organizations have called for in the Asia Pacific region to set up a wide coverage of a Free Trade Area, Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), to further promote trade and investment liberalization in the Asia-pacific region.The issue about establishing FTAAP is originally from "the Bogor goals" which was put forward in the declaration of Bogor of APEC meeting in 1994. "The goals established the APEC trade and investment liberalization in the Asia-pacific region of the target, developed members to 2010, the developing members to achieve this goal in 2020 schedule". Then at the Auckland conference in 1999, individual members of APEC suggested establishing FTAAP was supported by the United States, but was shelved because of wasn’t getting the response most of the members. Although followed active efforts by a large number of experts and scholars and international organizations, it made no substantive progress. Until 2006, FTAAP was officially put as a regional economic integration in the long-term development targets in APEC declaration of Hanoi, and APEC launched feasibility study on the vision of FTAAP. In 2010, the Yokohama vision of APEC declared that it would take concrete actions to promote the realization of the FTAAP, and believed that FTAAP should be defined as a comprehensive free trade agreement. At the same time, it put forward the two possible ways to realize FTAAP:TPP path and the RCEP path. The APEC meeting in 2014 formally adopted the "APEC to promote the Asia-pacific free trade area Beijing road map", started the implementation FTAAP issues related to joint strategic research, and began the process of the FTAAP comprehensive propulsion system. APEC trade ministers’ meeting in 2015 approved the implementation FTAAP issues related to joint strategic research outline, decision, led by the two parties, promote joint strategic research framework. One of the important problems is the FTAAP route choice problem, although the 2010 APEC "Yokohama vision" clearly put forward the path of TPP and RCEP as two possible paths, but in the end, to choose which path, the cooperation pattern selection, will bring the economies in the Asia-pacific region, including China, and even the global economy great influence, which is worth further research.Under the background of division of labor of global value chain, according to the status of the current regional economic cooperation in the Asia-pacific region, this article will make a study on the realization of the FTAAP path and its effects. In this paper, there are six problems to be solved:(a) What’s the base to establish FTAAP? The analysis is about theoretical basis and economic base to establish the FTAAP. The catalysis formed by global value chain made a significant and far-reaching influence on cross-border trade and investment. Economic globalization has been rapid expansion on the basis of the global value chain; mutual trade and investment among economies of the Asia-pacific region and Asia-pacific regional production network have become important parts of the global value chain. Based on the review of the Asia-pacific regional economic cooperation, this paper reviews the traditional theory of regional economic cooperation, on the basis of system analysis of the theory of global value chain and global production networks and put forward the theoretical framework of this article. Then the paper analyzes the economic foundation to established FTAAP from five aspects:first, macroeconomic conditions of economies of the Asia-pacific region; second, the situation of economic cooperation in the Asia-pacific region; third, the trade comparative advantage of the economies in the Asia-pacific region; fourth, trade complementarities and competitive among economies of the Asia-pacific region; fifth, the formation process of production networks in the Asia-pacific region. Based on theoretical and economic foundation of comprehensive analysis to establish the feasibility of the FTAAP, the paper put further analysis of how to construct FTAAP, as well as the effects of the establishment of the FTAAP.(b) What’s the development status of free trade agreements in the Asia-pacific region? It is namely, the characteristics of the free trade agreement in the Asia Pacific region, the status of the free trade agreement which has been in place for the current and has completed negotiations to implement or in the negotiation. It analyzes the regional organization condition of regional economic cooperation, state of the liberalization. Then, the paper summarizes the commonness and difference of all kinds of free trade agreement of the Asia-pacific region.(c) How to choose the path to establish FTAAP? This paper will detail the various paths of implementations of the FTAAP; it mainly includes the mechanism of Asia-pacific, mechanism of East Asia, fusion, internal integration and staged implementation. At the same time, it put forward to discuss the possible paths of FTAAP:the TPP path and the RCEP path. And then the article introduces the analysis methods, which include the production network of free trade area of the Asia-pacific implementation path analysis, the influence of the free trade area of the Asia-pacific to achieve path based on global value chain analysis, as well as the free trade area of the Asia-pacific economic effect analysis. The paper wants to show different performance and influence of the two different paths to establish FTAAP.(d)What’s the correlation between the development of production networks in the Asia-pacific region and the FTAAP construction? Related studies suggest that the spread of the regional economic cooperation depth integration agreement is closely related to the expansion of the production network. This paper tries to find whether the development of the regional production network will affect the depth of integration in the Asia-pacific region, with empirical analysis of the impact of production network on achieve path of FTAAAP, through the analysis of regression, studying whether this effect is remarkable. Then based on the background of global value chain, the paper analyzes paths for the FTAAP, namely through the analysis of the economies in the Asia-pacific region for the participation of two paths of existing production network value chain and value chain influence, in order to draw the relationship between the economies with production network formed by different paths.(e) What’s the difference of the economic effect of FTAAP between the path of the TPP and RCEP? Different path set different scenarios of liberalism, with GTAP model, the paper simulates the impact of the FTAAP; it will find the difference of welfare the economies under different paths to establish FTAAP, so as to provide reference for the choice of the path for the future.(f) What kind role China should play in the process of the construction of the FTAAP? The paper firstly makes clear the direction of the construction of FTAAP, and then on the basis of summarizes the full text; put forward the strategies of China’s participation in the construction of FTAAP.Based on the theoretical framework and the economic foundation of the research of FTAAP, the paper makes empirical research on the the paths of the FTAAP and its economic effect. The full text is divided into seven chapters:The first chapter is an introduction, and includes four sections:the first section describes the research background of this article; the second quarter puts forward the research question, and analyzes the research purpose and meaning; the third section introduces research ideas and research methods; the fourth section is about research content and framework of this article, and points out the innovations and shortcomings of full text.The second chapter analyzes the theoretical foundation of establishing FTAAP, which is divided into five sections:the first section is about the Asia-pacific regional economic cooperation of the related studies were reviewed, including three aspects: the content of the integration of form, the development trend of perspective and literature review of the related research of FTAAP; the second quarter analyzes traditional theory of regional economic cooperation with the theoretical basis of regional economic cooperation, motivation, influence factors and the effect analysis; the third quarter analyzes the formation and development of the theory of global value chain with the definition of global value chain, the related research and theoretical framework; the fourth quarter analyzes global production networks of related research and regional production networks; the fifth section puts forward the theoretical framework of the establishment of FTAAP in this paper.The third chapter analysis the economic foundation of FTAAP, which is divided into five sections to study.The first section describes the macroeconomic situation of economies in the Asia-pacific region; the second quarter analyzes the status of the economic cooperation in the Asia-pacific region from the aspects of mutual trade and investment; the third section analyzes comparative advantage of the economies in the Asia-pacific region; the fourth section analyzes complementarities and competitive among economies in the Asia-pacific region; the fifth section makes research on the forming process and the cause of the production network of Asia-pacific region.The fourth chapter analyzes the characteristics of the free trade agreement in the Asia-pacific region, including four sections:the first section analyzes the pattern of the Asia-pacific regional economic cooperation; the second section describes a free trade agreement which has been reached in the Asia-pacific region, including the NAFTA, AFTA, five "10+1" FTA/EPA surrounding the ASEAN and the TPSEPA; the third section analyzes the free trade agreements which has been completed negotiations to implement or in the negotiation, including TPP, RCEP and CJKFTA; the fourth section summarizes the commonness and difference of all kinds of free trade agreement of the Asia-pacific region.The fifth chapter is based on global value chain of the asia-pacific free trade area to realize path analysis, which is divided into two sections.The first section makes empirical research on the impact of the production network on the realizing path of FTAAP; the second section is under the perspective of participation, analyzes the influence on value chain FTAAP path.The sixth chapter simulates the effect to the economies of the FTAAP, which is divided into three sections. The first section introduces the GTAP model; the second section is to design path scenario of realizing the FTAAP; the third quarter makes detailed simulation on economic effect of the FTAAP.The seventh chapter discusses the significance of China’s participation in the construction of FTAAP and countermeasures, which is divided into two sections.The first section discusses the direction of the construction of FTAAP. After summarizing the conclusion, the second quarter puts forward China’s strategies of participating the construction of the FTAAP.