Published Paper Details:

For a country dealing with dumping cases against China in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and looking for furthering its trade and economic interests with Southeast Asia and the greater Indo-Pacific region in the recent context, the RCEP poses a dilemma for India as it is a right set of beneficial arrangement only if strategically calculated. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is an initiative to integrate 15 nations in one trade grouping. However, it also compelled nations to accept common tariff structure, customs and trade regulations. For India, which has the adverse trade balance with most of the countries, the problem is to work out a strategy or define the rules of trade which protects its interests while negotiating trade pacts with groupings. There is no denying of the fact that China has been using Rules of Origin (ROO) to venture into Indian markets by entering into joint ventures and opening production facilities in Southeast Asian countries and managing the trade restrictions with impunity. Meanwhile, India has been reiterating that trade agreements with ASEAN has helped four major ASEAN countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The trade benefits have been asymmetrical with increase in Indian exports, not in same proportion as imports from ASEAN nations. Further, limited opening of services exports has jeopardized India's plans to compensate adverse merchandise trade with services. Therefore, Indian entry into RCEP could have been a risky jump which would have affected its economy and market. The cheap (Chinese) imported goods would have rendered many unemployed and the uneven production costs would have skewed trade balance much more in favor of China and other countries. It has been debated that RCEP was a missed opportunity for India but then with limited market growth in the other 15 member countries and Chinese selective opening of markets, and dumping of subsidized products, were major hindrances in India joining the trade grouping. The paper would argue the major thought process in India related to RCEP and why certain nagging issues which were not addressed in multiple RCEP meetings, forced India to take a contrarian stance.