May 14 – Leaders from China, Japan, and South Korea concluded the Fifth Trilateral Summit Meeting and signed the Trilateral Agreement for the Promotion, Facilitation and Protection of Investment (hereinafter referred as the Trilateral Agreement) at a summit in Beijing. The Trilateral Agreement represents a stepping stone towards a three-way free trade pact to counter global economic turbulence and to boost economic growth in Asia.

In the joint declaration, the three nations list directions and prioritization of future cooperation, which includes enhancing mutual political trust, deepening economic and trade cooperation, promoting sustainable development, expanding social, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and strengthening communication and coordination in regional and international affairs.

According to a feasibility study that the three governments issued in 2011 on the proposed trade pact, China, Japan and South Korea accounted for 19.6 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and 18.5 percent of exports in 2010. A free trade treaty between the three countries could lift the GDP of China, Japan and South Korea by 2.9 percent, 0.5 percent and 3.1 percent respectively, according to estimates made by Xinhua News Agency.

However, as the three countries are divided by political distrust, trade barriers and diverging investment policies, there remains a long road ahead before they reach any free trade agreement.

“The problem with the free trade pact will be all the exceptions that the three try to carve out to protect domestic interests,” said Bush, who added that in trade and other issues among the three, “the obstacles to greater cooperation are conflicting nationalisms, with each country having problems with the other two.”Barfield explained that the summit has been the basis for discussions leading toward a trilateral trade agreement. “And it comes from a common sense that there is a potential commonality of interest among these three nations,” he said. “Each of them has different reasons for wanting to go forward with it.”

East Asia is a region rife with economic growth as well as political and military uncertainty, particularly given the constant risk of instability emanating from North Korea. This makes coordination between these three major powers in issues beyond trade all the more important.

The three-way free trade pact is said to create a trade zone rivaling in size the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union.

Japan wants to launch formal talks on the trilateral pact, known as an FTA,”as soon as possible,” and will urge the other two nations to join in, Japanese prime minister said. “We are pursuing high-level economic cooperation as part of our national strategy,” Noda said.”The Japan-China-Korea FTA is an extremely important piece of it.”

Extract from wordpoliticsreview.com, presstv.ir, china-briefing.com

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