Chaos Deferred

India's withdrawl from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership sits well in this era of hyper deglobalisation. It now needs a roadmap to make the domestic economy competitive.

- KUNDAN PANDEY and JITENDRA

It was meant to be the biggest trade partnership, after the World Trade Organization. With a quarter of the global commerce and one-third of the gdp, involving 16 countries that are home to half of the world’s population, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was designed to create the world’s largest free trade area. India worked towards its finalisation for close to seven years through 28 rounds of negotiations. But on November 4, when the nation heads met at Bangkok, Thailand, to thrash out the details, the government pulled out of it. “Neither the talisman of Gandhiji nor my own conscience permit me to join,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

When proposed in 2012, RCEP was to bind together all the existing trade agreements between the 10 asean nations (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) and the region’s other big economies, including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India, and harmonise trade rules across the member countries. “The present form of RCEP agreement does not fully reflect the basic spirit and the agreed guiding principles of RCEP,” said Modi. The concerns have been there even before the summit began on November 2. On October 31, Vijay Thakur Singh, secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, told the media that some “critical” issues were yet to be resolved, fuelling speculation that India might buy more time before entering into the partnership. But India’s last-minute change instance was as much a surprise to all as a shock to the negotiating nations.