Comparative Analysis of Chinese and South Korean Approaches to Economic Integration in the Asia-Pacific Region

ERI FEB RAS	Issue's contents	RUS
	Regionalistica 2023 Volume 10 number 6 pages 133-150

Title of the article	Comparative Analysis of Chinese and South Korean Approaches to Economic Integration in the Asia-Pacific Region
Pages	133-150
Author 1	Tomilov Mikhail Vladimirovich candidate of sciences (economics), junior researcher Economic Research Institute FEB RAS 153, Tikhookeanskaya Street, Khabarovsk, Russia, 680042 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ORCID: 0000-0002-5048-984X
Author 2	Sukhanov Ivan Anatoliyevich post-graduate student Economic Research Institute FEB RAS 153, Tikhookeanskaya Street, Khabarovsk, Russia, 680042 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ORCID: 0009-0001-0100-8149
Abstract	The article provides a comparative analysis of the Chinese and South Korean approaches to the development of integration interactions in the Asia-Pacific region (APR), as well as their changes from the end of the 20th century to the beginning of 2023. As a result, it is shown that from 2003 to 2017, the main priority of the PRC was the conclusion of bilateral free trade agreements with individual states ready to make concessions in order to gain expanded access to the Chinese market. However, starting in 2018, China has revised this strategy in favor of the development of multilateral trade unions. The main reason was the loss of the US leadership position in the determining the norms and rules of APR trade after the country’s integration policy revision. Unlike China, the Republic of Korea (ROK) is steadily developing a network of bilateral free trade agreements, which have already covered almost all major trading partners. ROK is wary of multilateral formats due to the need to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers in foreign trade, which may lead to a decrease in the protection of national producers. Priority associations within the framework of the new Chinese paradigm are recognized as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), to which Beijing and Seoul have been participants since its inception, as well as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the Chinese application for accession to which was submitted in 2021. In this regard, this work assessed the prospects for expanding economic integration of China and ROK in the Asia-Pacific region through accession to the CPTPP. The stages of the accession process are identified, as well as the main obstacles to becoming full-fledged participants in the partnership. As a result, the hypothesis of the minimum chances of the PRC to obtain the member status is substantiated due to geopolitical problems, inconsistency of the country’s legislation with the rules of the CPTPP and high tariff protection of the country’s commodity market. In its turn, ROK meets almost all the requirements of the partnership, however, along with China, it will also not become its member in the medium term due to the more stringent conditions for the cancellation / reduction of tariffs within CPTPP compared to the RCEP.
Code	339.92
DOI	10.14530/reg.2023.6.133
Keywords	China, Republic of Korea, trade, integration, CPTPP, RCEP, APR
Download	2023-06.133.pdf
For citation	Tomilov M.V., Sukhanov I.A. Comparative Analysis of Chinese and South Korean Approaches to Economic Integration in the Asia-Pacific Region. Regionalistica [Regionalistics]. 2023. Vol. 10. No. 6. Pp. 133–150. http://dx.doi.org/10.14530/reg.2023.6.133 (In Russian)
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