Reference: After China's entry into WTO, China has taken a new step in participating in free trade agreements. With the start of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area negotiations, the smooth progress of closer economic and trade relations between the mainland and Hong Kong, and the acceleration of signing bilateral free trade agreements with some countries, China has entered a new stage of regional economic cooperation. Reviewing the development of bilateral FTA in the world, sorting out its internal reasons and characteristics, and comparing the existing bilateral FTA texts will undoubtedly help China adapt to the situation of economic globalization and regional economic integration, and promote the decision-making of bilateral FTA negotiations with relevant countries and regions.
From 1950s to 1990s, regional economic cooperation marked by European Free Trade Association, North American Free Trade Area and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation developed rapidly. However, in the late 1990s, the new economy supported by information and communication technology injected new vitality into the internationalization of production and sales. The application of new means such as electronic commerce and paperless trade has greatly changed the traditional international trade and greatly improved the economic efficiency. In this case, the focus of WTO members has turned to bilateral FTA, which is characterized by the signing of bilateral FTA by two economies. This is not just a regional trade agreement limited to trade and investment.
Signing a bilateral free trade agreement is an important part of China's multi-bilateral economic and trade relations. After China's accession to the WTO, great progress has been made in bilateral free trade agreements. In recent years, there are many research documents about bilateral free trade agreements. Both academic circles and empirical departments have discussed bilateral FTA, but most of them have not realized the problems caused by the separation of domestic and international, political and economic methods.
In academic circles, this method emphasizes the static analysis of the tariff effect of bilateral free trade agreements. From the perspective of economic effect, the bilateral free trade agreement has promoted the trade transfer of members themselves through special preferential arrangements for tariff and non-tariff measures, greatly increased the opportunities for members' goods to enter each other's markets, and thus promoted the further expansion of trade and production scale of members; Preferential measures for trade and investment facilitation implemented by bilateral free trade agreements reduce barriers to mutual investment, reduce investment costs, encourage fair competition, improve each other's industrialization level, and give play to the scale benefits of integrated markets; Bilateral free trade agreements have promoted the flow of technology and talents among members, made up for their respective deficiencies in technology and management talents, improved each other's scientific and technological level, and enhanced members' comprehensive economic and social development capabilities.
In the empirical field, there are many arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of bilateral free trade agreements. Supporters believe that bilateral free trade agreements will eliminate trade and investment barriers between countries, promote trade liberalization, strengthen the functions of the WTO and improve its multilateral rules, thus contributing to the economic development of all countries. Especially in terms of removing barriers, implementing policy innovations such as investment management and market supervision, bilateral free trade agreements are much faster than cumbersome WTO negotiations. Opponents believe that proposing bilateral arrangements in multilateral negotiations is a dangerous act that deviates from the theme and will damage the multilateral trading system. At the Sydney Ministerial Summit in 2002, Supachai Panitchpakdi, the current Director-General of WTO, warned that regionalism was on the rise, and he reminded members that "creating a complex trading system network by discriminating against third parties will increase the systemic risk of the global trading system". Kalman Cohen, head of the US Emergency Trade Committee, believes that "free trade agreements are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they offer the prospect of expanding trade and investment. On the other hand, differences between agreements may worsen the trading environment. "
Second, the basic situation of bilateral FTA activities and regional economic cooperation in the world
Free trade agreements can take many forms, including preferential trade zones, free trade zones, customs unions, common markets and economic unions. They constitute different stages of regional economic integration in turn. In the preferential trade zone, some preferential tariff concessions are implemented among members. In a free trade zone, tariff and non-tariff barriers among members are reduced, but each member has the right to set its own tariff rate for non-members. The customs union is also a free trade area, but members adopt the same external tariffs for all non-members. * * * Common market is an advanced form of regional economic integration, which not only eliminates all trade and investment barriers among members, but also allows the free flow of production factors (capital and labor). Economic union is the highest stage of regional economic integration, including the integration of economic policies such as fiscal policy and monetary policy of member countries. Eventually, it may even lead to political integration and economic and political alliance. Regional economic cooperation, including bilateral free trade agreements, is not new. As early as 1950s, it has become an integral part of the world trade system. For more than half a century, regional economic cooperation has produced three waves in the world.
The first wave of regional economic cooperation took place in 1950s and 1960s, marked by the European economic unification established by 1956. Another protagonist of the wave of regional economic cooperation in Europe is the European Free Trade Association, which was proposed by Britain and established in 1960. In addition to Britain, its members also include some small countries in Western Europe. This is a pure trading group and does not have the supranational characteristics of Europe. Although the European Free Trade Association still exists today, its membership is limited to four countries, including Iceland. In addition, there have been some free trade agreements in Latin America in which developing countries participated, but most of them ended in failure in the end, because of the strong opposition of the United States. As the largest trading country in the world, the United States initially resolutely opposed any form of regional economic cooperation and advocated free trade through multilateral trade negotiations.
The second wave of regional economic cooperation occurred in the early 1990s, marked by the formation of the European single market, the birth of the North American Free Trade Area and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. It is worth mentioning that the entry into force of the 1989 free trade agreement between the United States and Canada marks an important turning point in the attitude of the United States towards regional economic cooperation. It abandoned its opposition to regional economic cooperation and turned to participate in and dominate regional free trade agreements in order to obtain more economic and political benefits. During this period, the EU expanded rapidly and made a transition to the EU. Then the North American Free Trade Area was declared. This directly led to the rise of regional economic cooperation between Latin America and Africa. Some old free trade agreements have come into force again, and new regional trade agreements have been formed, such as the Southern Cone Common Market, the Andean Common Market and the West African Economic and Monetary Union. The Asia-Pacific region is later than the rest of the world. APEC did not appear until 1989 (at that time, there were only 12 members), and the ASEAN Free Trade Area was established in 1992.
The third wave of regional economic cooperation appeared in the late 1990s and has continued to this day. This wave is characterized by the emergence of regional trade agreements around the world, especially bilateral free trade agreements. According to the statistics of WTO, as of May 2003, more than 265 regional trade agreements have been notified to WTO/GATT. Among these agreements, more than 190 have come into effect at present, and 138 was notified after 1995 and 1. Most of them are bilateral FTAs, and the other 60 are still in operation, although they have not been notified. According to the reported figures, 300 regional trade agreements may come into force by 2005. This wave includes the implementation of dozens of bilateral free trade agreements between the EU and emerging economies in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Central Asia, as well as a large number of bilateral free trade agreements being negotiated and signed in the Asia-Pacific region.
1, Asia Pacific. The earliest bilateral FTA in the Asia-Pacific region is the Australia-New Zealand Close Economic Relations Agreement signed by 1983. 1989 was the only bilateral FTA in the Asia-Pacific region. As for East Asia, there is no bilateral FTA. From 65438 to 0997, among the top 30 countries and regions in global GDP, only Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan Province Province of China and Hong Kong SAR have not joined any bilateral FTA, and they are all in East Asia. However, after 1997, a large number of bilateral FTAs appeared in East Asia, which constituted the protagonist of the third wave of regional economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 50 bilateral free trade agreements at different levels in the Asia-Pacific region.
2. America. In recent years, Canada and Chile have reached a bilateral free trade agreement, and the bilateral free trade agreement negotiations with the European Free Trade Association are nearing completion, and negotiations with the Southern Cone are under way; In July 2000, Mexico and the European Union reached a bilateral free trade agreement; ; The United States reached a bilateral free trade agreement with Jordan in 2000, and bilateral free trade agreements with Chile, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey are also being negotiated under the "fast track authorization". In the Caribbean, the Caribbean Community with 13 members has reached bilateral free trade agreements with Dominica and Cuba.
3. Europe The EU is linked with Central and Eastern European countries through bilateral agreements. The members of China-EU Free Trade Agreement are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The members of the Baltic Free Trade Area are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. With the acceleration of EU's eastward expansion, European bilateral free trade agreements will be further extended.
4. Africa West African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Algeria and Togo agreed to 200 1 unified tariff. South Africa, including 10 countries, is expected to form a free trade zone in 2004. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, with the participation of 20 countries, was launched from 5 June to138 October 2000. It can be predicted that Africa's regional economic cooperation will be dominated by free trade zones, and it will take some time for bilateral free trade zones to mature.
5. Middle East. In June 1999 and June 1, the Gulf Cooperation Council agreed to realize the same tariff before 2005. In many Middle Eastern countries, Israel and Jordan have signed bilateral free trade agreements with the United States. On May 9, 2003, President Bush announced that the United States intends to establish a bilateral free trade zone with Middle East countries in the future 10, so as to push the Middle East economy onto a virtuous circle.
The Fifth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Cancun ended without results, which led to the negotiation and signing of bilateral free trade agreements. Due to the failure of multilateral channels, many members have expressed their desire to achieve what Cancun failed to achieve through bilateral or multilateral means for their respective national interests or strategic goals. Robert Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, said that "when WTO members think about their future, the United States will not wait" and will push forward the plan to open the global market through bilateral FTA negotiations. Singapore has also decided to pursue its own free trade interests through bilateral free trade agreements. Reny, Singapore's Minister of Trade and Industry, said, "With the failure of Cancun negotiations, free trade agreements have become more important to us.". The setback in Cancun may not be as severe as in Africa or Latin America, but it may prompt Asian countries to step up bilateral free trade agreement negotiations. Even the European Union, which has been lacking enthusiasm for regional trade agreements, has begun to discuss putting the signing of bilateral FTA on the agenda.
In a word, the goal pursued by bilateral FTA and multilateral trading system is trade liberalization, but due to different promotion degrees, the impact is also very different. From a certain point of view, bilateral FTA is a staged choice to pursue trade liberalization. The trend of economic globalization is irreversible, and global trade liberalization is also the inevitable direction of historical development. Although countries present complex and diverse national trade interests due to different levels of development and different resources, with the active promotion of WTO and the efforts of all members, the road from bilateral FTA to multilateral trading system will gradually be presented to people.