Bilateral Or Regional? - Create Path India FTA

China and India are the two largest developing countries. Due to theimplementation of the “Opening-up” policy, China and India have achieved rapideconomic development and increasingly close bilateral economic ties, which makesthe two giants become important trade partners to each other. In this context, thestrengthening of bilateral economic and trade cooperation is on the agenda.In2003, India proposed the motion to establish the "China-India Free Trade Area(CIFTA)”. China responded positively and show the willingness to set up bilateralFTA with India. China and India established a Joint Study Group to examine thepotential for economic engagement between the two countries. Since then,however,India’s attitude for the FTA with China reversed.It is impossible for China topromote bilateral FTA to enter a substantive stage unilaterally.China-India FTA suffered “dystocia”, but no “abortion”. Both sides still haveinterest in this issue and continue to maintain contact under the framework ofChina-India Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum. And the RegionalComprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) provides new path to theestablishment of the China-India FTA.Through economic, political and strategic analysis, this thesis aims at exploringthe basis for the establishment of China-India FTA and what the key reason for thedilemma of the FTA is. Through the analysis of the RCEP advantages and China andIndia’s attitude towards RCEP, the writer manages to study the feasibility ofChina-India FTA’s regional path. According to the theory of Relative Gains, Thisthesis draws the conclusion that the best path to establish China-India FTA is to makefull use of RCEP platform, at the same time, China should spare no pains to build thebilateral path. That is, China should take RCEP as the main path, supplemented bybilateral path. Only in this way, can the China-India FTA be established successfully.