15 Asia-Pacific countries, including China, Australia, and New Zealand, joined the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in November 2020. But India withdrew from the pact in 2018 after entering negotiations in 2013.
Piyush Goyal, the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, said RECEP doesn’t reflect the guiding principles on which ASEAN was started. He highlighted that it’s not in India’s interest to do a free trade with China. Besides, there were unresolved core interest issues between India and China.
Goyal said India already had a free trade agreement with ASEAN, Korea, and Japan, as well as New Zealand. The minister explained that it was not in the Indian farmers’ interests because RECEP did not reflect the aspirations of their small and micro medium interests and sector. He said the pact was nothing but a mere free trade agreement with China.
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India Was Not With China’s RCEP from the Beginning
According to ORF, India was hesitant about RCEP in regards to investments, rules of origin, tariff commitments, investments, etc. Moreover, the Indian government was under domestic pressure from various sections of the industry, MSME, and political organizations.
Experts say RCEP, considered the largest trade agreement in the world, would have pushed India to make its manufacturing sector more competitive.
Goyal said one doesn’t realize how difficult it is to compete against a non-transparent economy. He pointed out that no one likes to have a free trade agreement with a non-transparent economy, which is very opaque in its economic practices.
The minister said China’s trading systems, political systems, and economy, the way that it is managed are very different from what the democratic world wants.
Furthermore, India accused China of using the World Trade Organization’s policies to flood countries around the world with goods, not meeting quality standards, at low prices.
