The simple reason being that it indicates that all these countries, including US allies, are willing to put their names on an agreement with China which will only serve to anger the US even if there is no material benefit in doing so.
That’s either a huge FU to the US, or more likely, them believing, unlike in 2016 after the TPP, that it’s more important to keep China happy because the US will have relatively less influence in the region.
Either way, it indicates that the leadership of the countries who signed up for this believe that the relative strength of the US vs China in the region has reduced.
If people think the investor covenant situation in the US is bad, it's that much worse in asia. A lot of money burning pits and lack of fast progress isn't really going to change unless the situation on the ground can actually improve and it wont happen from diktats (TPP, RCEP, etc) from above.
Japan had a trade DEFICIT with china in 2019, 15B. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/23/business/japan-... "marking a second straight year of red ink amid slowing demand in China"
> Therefore, any attempts of decoupling or supply chain realignment will target South East Asia first in which China has a significant influence.
The governments of India, Vietnam, and Indonesia vehemently disagree with you. And it's not ATTEMPT. Supply chain moving away from China is fully underway for several years already. Foxconn already declared that China is no longer the world's factory. https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/08/12/foxconn-says-trad...
This is completely wrong. Japan has an overall trade deficit, but not with China. It runs a 30B trade surplus trading with China, according to Chinese foreign ministry[1].
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/web/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/yz_67620...
Which part they are disagree with?
For the Foxconn statement.. I'll wait and see, they are prone to overpromise
>"Such announcements are far from unusual for Gou, and often, nothing comes of them. In Vietnam in 2007, in Brazil in 2011, in Pennsylvania in 2013, and in Indonesia in 2014, Foxconn announced enormous factories that either fell far short of promises or never appeared."
https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wi...
Btw Foxconn just pivot back to China
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2020/05/07/iphone...
This remains the biggest question, and imo would require china to invest a lot more uncollateralized in SEA than they do already (most doable), or import a lot more from SEA (I do not see this happening).
No one is willing to laugh out loud. I don't know what that means?
I believe it's supposed to be "No one is willing to, lol". In this case "lol" is describing what the writer is feeling about this statement, not what the objects of his writing are doing.
The confusion is due to the missing ",". However, it can be surmised that the omission was for brevity or by accident, and not intentionally to convey a meaning which would otherwise be inconsistent with the preceding sentences.
One thing is for sure, as an US expat in SEA, china is #1 economically in the region as far as investing, not because they are any good, but lack of will from US investors in large… and in this environment, I'm not so sure getting in now is best because the lack of high quality collateral available to back investments if things go south (or get hold up for years like they have with projects…)
I'm more interested in to see if this will translate to more offshore usage of the chy, and offshore chy loans… if not, things will remain status quo (boondoggles)…
For this to even work, someone has to run current account deficit and runs capital account surplus (play the role of the US). No one is willing to lol.
NY times actually summarizes it pretty well: It has little impact on legal work, accounting or other services that cross borders, and does not venture far into the often-divisive issue of ensuring greater intellectual property protections https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/15/business/china-trade-rcep...