Multilateral and Bilateral Economic Cooperation in Northeast Asia

Abstract

The review is devoted to the formats of bilateral and multilateral economic cooperation of the Northeast Asia (NEA) countries. NEA comprises six countries that account for 23,3% of the worldТs population, 25,7% of the global GDP and 22,1% of the worldТs merchandise exports. Despite their considerable potential, the NEA countries do not have six-party agreements on trade, investment, customs or migration cooperation, preferring projects with a wider range of participants. There are no such agreements on a trilateral basis between the СBig ThreeТ countries, which include China, Japan and the Republic of Korea and act as the NEA СlocomotiveТ. These areas of cooperation are developed mainly on a bilateral basis. The majority of free trade agreements (FTAs) signed by NEA countries are with non-regional partners. At the same time, the DPRK is characterized by a complete lack of agreements, and Russia does not have agreements with subregional partners. Currently there are only two bilateral FTAs in force between the NEA countriesа China-Republic of Korea Free Trade Agreement and Japan-Mongolia Economic Partnership Agreement. The process of negotiations and implementation of agreements (both multilateral and bilateral) is significantly complicated by the periodic aggravation of Sino-Japanese and Korean-Japanese relations, as well as the DPRK nuclear weapons issue

Keywords

• fta
• northeast asia
• china
• japan
• dprk
• republic of korea
• mongolia
• russia