Look. I'm not trying to start another pointless struggle session. Far from that, I want each and every one of us to confront this most strange attempt at multilateralism by two of our favourite existing socialisms.

There's no substantial article on the environment. Not a single word on climate or pollution. And nothing on labour issues.

I get that the whole thing is brand new and the member countries will probably amend to add more to the document in later stages.

But now is the point the heads of governments go back to their respective legislative body for ratification. Again, nothing on labour, the environment or the climate.

I want us Chapos to confront the likelihood that existing socialist experiments are faltering, even abandoning, a key promise of socialism to workers: reducing work hours for more leisure time. That, and no idea how trade is going to connect to the climate crisis.

  • Sidereal223 [he/him]
    3·
    4 years ago

    Like Michael Pettis says (he's the professor of finance at Peking University), the hype for the RCEP is overblown. It's nothing more than a way to reduce friction in trade between the countries involved. Most of the countries involved run trade surpluses so they'll still need to export to other countries with deficits (Australia has but it's too small a country to really matter). What it does do is make it more difficult for the US to try and isolate China from the global trade network.

    As much as it sucks, China is completely entangled within the global trade network, so it also has to play by its rules. Those expecting China to push for labor protections don't understand that China rarely makes demands like that of other countries anyways. It doesn't really matter that they include environmental provisions in the agreement, the push by China (and probably Japan) towards renewables is going to force other countries to follow anyhow.

    The agreement to liberalise trade/investment probably has something to do with China's new (but not really new) dual circulation model (trying to increase international investment and domestic consumption). In order to accomplish the second part, the CPC will have no choice but to increase the share of what their workers produce. This is in line with Xi's "Chinese Dream for a Moderately Prosperous Society" but will unlikely have effects on workers of other countries.