Research On China’s Trade Status In RCEP And The Prospects Of RCEP

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the world economy is continuously changing, especially with further development of the emerging economies in East Asian, international competition is becoming increasingly fierce. While the world economy is recovering in a slow step, more and more countries tend to actively carry out regional cooperation and worldwide inter-regional cooperation has become increasingly evident. February 4, 2016, the United States, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam 12 countries signed the "Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement"(TPP) in Auckland, which marks the long six years of negotiations finally finished, the Asia-Pacific region is to be formed a high-standard free trade zone based on the US and Japan and other developed countries. In contrast, China, ASEAN countries, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand failed to come agree with the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership"(RCEP) which is planned to be reach in 2015.Under these backgrounds, this paper analyzes China’s trade status in RCEP and the prospects of RCEP. In addition to the introduction part, this article is divided into four parts. Specifically, the second part is an overview of the theory of regional economic integration, including the concept of regional economic integration, customs union theory, "Axes-Spoke" theory and new regionalism theory, which is as a theoretical support for full-text analysis. The third part analyzes the origin and development process of RCEP and draws the conclusion that RCEP is aimed to integrate the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation Mechanism and balance US dominance control of East Asian economic cooperation, and also summarizes the challenges facing RCEP. The fourth part analyzes the trade complementarity and similarity between China and the other RCEP member states by Trade Specialization Index, Merchandise Trade Complementarity Index and Index of Similarity, and then explains RCEP will bring "trade creation" in the region and some new opportunities for China’s foreign trade development. The fifth part is prospects of RCEP. This section firstly analyzes the development prospect of RCEP compared to TPP and draws the conclusion that the two will work together to promote Asia-Pacific economic integration process and should strengthen communication and coordination in the future. Then, this section analyses China’s development prospects in RCEP. This article argues that China should actively coordinate the interests of all parties in the process of RCEP negotiations to make it reach earlier. Besides, China may promote the adjustment of the international economic order that more suitable for China through the RCEP framework.