ABSTRACT
Previous chapters have alluded to the historically and critically important role played by trade in shaping international relations among East Asian peoples and nations. Chapter 2 explored the growth and functional development of regional trade from different micro-level perspectives, and its major contributions made to East Asia’s regionalisation over time. In this chapter, we explore how East Asia’s governments have used trade diplomacy as a means to pursue foreign economic policy interests, how the nature of this diplomacy has changed over recent years and is likely to change in the foreseeable future, and its effects on East Asian regionalism. By far the most important development since the mid-1990s to date has been the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs). These, though, have been in almost every case bilateral pacts signed between two states. Despite the efforts of East Asian and fellow Asia-Pacific governments, regional FTAs have proved largely elusive. FTAs have a long history globally, but are relatively new to East Asia. They are essentially part of the economic liberal tradition of removing barriers that impede nations doing business with each other. They are thus essentially concerned with passive integration, a concept first introduced in Chapter 3 and discussed in more detail in concluding Chapter 8. However, as we later discuss FTAs have become much more than just commercial treaties, and reflect many of the issue-linkage complexities that define international economic relations in the twenty-first century. Relatedly, trade diplomacy in East Asia and elsewhere has become increasingly connected to ‘global challenge’ issues such as climate change, energy security and resource competition. This has accordingly influenced East Asia’s regional trade agenda in ways we also examine in this chapter.
