Study On Development Of East Asian Free Trade Areas

East Asian countries have accelerated the process of trade liberalization since the finance crisis in 1997. Many kinds of FTAs have been setting up including AFTA, JSEPA, and CAFTA. This thesis studies the development of East Asian FTAs with an aim to explore the problems and their relative issues, as well as to discuss the strategy of China on participating in the free trade in East Asia.The thesis firstly analyzes the background and motives of FTAs that have established in East Asia, then review the progress of the building of AFTA, CAFTA, and JSEPA. The characteristics of FTAs in East Asia manifest both plus and minus of WTO in comparing with the later. A series of index was established in order to making an evaluation of AFTA's social and economic effects as an example of all the FTAs in the area. The founding, however, indicate the positive, and the prospect of the AFTA is also optimistic, even though there are some limitations.The paper pointed out further that whether China and Japan could cooperate or not are the key issues confronting the development of FTAs of East Asia. Therefore, the both sides should follow the model of "German and French compromise settlement" in eliminating their contradiction so as to work together in making more contributions to the economic integration of East Asia. Nevertheless, all countries in East Asian should pay attention to the long-term interest and to bear the cost with an aim to promote the development of Asian FTAs.Since the reform and opening, the gravity of China's economy is rising in both East Asia and world economy. China's attitude toward regional economic cooperation has positively changed as well. However, China has not jet formulated its specific strategy toward FTA, and lacks the building experience of FTA up to now. With regard to the situation , the paper suggests China should set up "The big China FTA", which includes Mainland, Hongkong, Macao, and Taiwan to learn some experiences. Above this, China ought to participate actively in the establishing of FTAs, especially in East Asia, that will be beneficial to impulse both its domestic economic reform and the development of WTO multi-trade system.