The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) is the world's largest free trade agreement. The RCEP has significant implications for China’s agricultural trade especially in the ASEAN region which is China’s top export market, the second-biggest source of imports for Chinese agricultural products, and largest trading partner in the agricultural sector. To boost trade development, this paper presents a detailed SWOT analysis of China’s agricultural trade with the ASEAN using the RCEP as the research background. Through the RCEP, China’s agricultural products are expected to achieve not only growth in trade scale and trade facilitation, but also stronger economic ties in East Asia. However, the RECP also poses new challenges to China’s agricultural trade structure, core competitiveness, and quality and safety system. Therefore, China should reinforce its brand building, optimize its trade layout, deepen its agricultural transformation, and improve its cooperation to better enjoy the trade dividends brought by RCEP.

This integrative review introduces the correlative and evolutionary perspective of SWOT as a strategic analysis mechanism of geoeconomics. We use the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as a case study. Thus, we establish the emerging challenges and threats by correlating the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the RCEP, its members, and the global system. We conclude that this evolutionary approach of SWOT in geoeconomics can contribute to a holistic understanding of the current phase of the new globalization. It appears that evolutionary geoeconomics studies dialectically opposing views and interests. In this direction, we find that the vision and ambitions of the RCEP do not delve into significant socioeconomic depth compared to other multilateral organizations. This fact poses strategic risks to this new trade bloc’s longevity and socioeconomic sustainability. At the same time, we examine how these geostrategic dimensions are linked to the gradual construction of the broader framework of the new perspective of global socioeconomic development.

India’s recalibrated strategy toward free trade agreements (FTAs) has received considerable traction in the international trade policy space. Moreover, this has reignited the debate that India needs to reconsider its decision of not joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). A variety of factors such as domestic political economy, legal provisions of the RCEP agreement remained a matter of India’s concerns and shaping decision not to join the RCEP. The study explores scholarly literature and analyzes key imperatives such as integration in global value chains, consolidation of existing trade agreements and shaping global rulemaking for India to reconsider joining the RCEP agreement in the context of India’s new FTA strategy. The study findings demonstrate that India’s recalibrated strategy toward FTAs has significantly changed in terms of its geographical orientation, shift to bilateral trade deals, and geopolitical orientation. However, India is unlikely to consider joining the RCEP even under its new FTA strategy.

RCEP will have a significant impact on ASEAN, China and other contracting parties, significantly enhancing the cooperative levels between ASEAN and other essential economies in the region. It can develop the manufacturing industry in ASEAN and China with higher quality. First of all, this study used the Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O) and Threats (T) (SWOT) model to analyze the specific impacts of China’s participation in RCEP on the development of ASEAN’s manufacturing industry. Subsequently, strategic recommendations were put forward for the high-quality development of ASEAN’s manufacturing industry under the RCEP cooperation mechanism from four aspects of SO,WO, ST and WT. As the signing of RCEP provides an excellent development opportunity, the ASEAN member countries should carry out deeper cooperation with China; create new strengths for high-quality development of the manufacturing industry; erect a closer regional industrial chain and the supply chain; and promote the realization of a higher level of regional economic integration between ASEAN and China.

The members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) engaged with each other and their five major neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, to develop the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a comprehensive free trade agreement streamlining all previous agreements among the participating countries. This article applied the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) method in assessing the RCEP and the key role played by the ASEAN in the negotiation process through middle-power diplomacy. The RCEP’s strengths in economic integration and weaknesses in certain policy areas encapsulate ASEAN centrality and its strategy of hedging on China, the sole great power in the agreement. The opportunities and threats to the RCEP posed by the increasing geopolitical tensions between China and the US amid the COVID-19 pandemic, meanwhile, demonstrate the complex regional and global geopolitical situation that ASEAN should navigate to ensure the success of the RCEP and maintain centrality in the process.

Malaysia’s decision to join and rectify the agreement showed that the country is serious about business, trade liberalisation and its support for a fair and transparent trade regime. Moreover, Malaysia is expected to earn approximately USD 200 million in exports, while RCEP will provide immense opportunities for trade and investments, enhanced connectivity, and deepening regional economic integration. This study aims to analyse the extent to which Malaysia’s participation in the RCEP can benefit the country’s growth and development. For this goal, a SWOT analysis will be carried out to assess the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of joining RCEP, from Malaysia’s perspective. Findings suggest that Malaysia is indeed one of the main beneficiaries of the RCEP agreement in comparison to other ASEAN nations. However, much needs to be done by Malaysia to reap the benefits of the world’s largest trading bloc, while maintaining its national interests amidst a more liberal and open market setting.

As the Biden administration succeeded President Trump’s chaotic and undisciplined trade and investment policies toward China, the last six months of 2022 have seen significant developments in the US trade law and economic policy toward China. These legislative and regulatory developments bring into sharper focus a broader and more aggressive US legal and regulatory structure fostering industrial policy and confronting China. The recent midterm elections in the US and meeting in Bali between Xi and Biden only seem to maintain the current unsettling state of affairs. The subsequent WTO panel decision against the United States concerning its Section 232 national security tariffs and its rejection of national security defense only further complicates the US-China trade relations. The legislative and regulatory measures emanating from the US in the last half of 2022 are not helpful and represent a worrisome development. These measures are by far more aggressive, with significant domestic and global implications. They portend a new emerging post-WTO order.

In recent years, globalisation has fostered ever more frequent and intimate interactions between states and societies in the Asia-Pacific region. Unfortunately, this has also increased the potential for disputes, particularly regarding international trade and human rights. The Asia-Pacific Dispute Resolution Program, which is run jointly by the Institute of Asian Research and the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, seeks to better understand, explain and predict when such disputes will arise, combining stateof- the-art approaches from law, political science, communications, sociology, international relations, economics and business. To manage-and ideally preventsuch disputes, the world is in urgent need of resolution approaches that meet the needs and expectations of the different cultures involved. The objective of the Program is to propose innovative interdisciplinary approaches to dispute resolution that international communities of scholars and policymakers can use to promote intercultural communication and reconciliation.

In recent years, the use of third-party funds (TPF) in mainland China and beyond has grown significantly. Under the third-party funding model, the risks and costs of litigation or arbitration are transferred to parties outside the case. The parties with economic difficulties have a better chance of obtaining legal justice. However, the financial motives of third-party funders are not always in the interest of the parties or the courts’ need to review the cases efficiently and impartially. Therefore, appropriate regulatory measures against the potential risks of TPF are necessary. By comparing recent developments and historical backgrounds in the field of TPF in different countries, this book reveals differences in regulatory approaches to TPF in selected jurisdictions. In combination with China’s legal tradition, social conditions and empirical research, the author also offers suggestions on how to solve legal issues related to TPF in China. Against the background that the development of TPF in China is still in its infancy and China’s Arbitration Law is being revised, this book not only helps Chinese legislators formulate regulations on TPF, but also provides a great guiding tool for litigation and arbitration parties.