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On Wednesday, November 11, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies held a roundtable with University of California, Berkeley Professor Vinod K. Aggarwal.
In a talk titled “Mega-FTAs in the Pacific and the Atlantic,” Professor Aggarwal addressed issues of transatlantic trade and investment partnerships. Specifically, he elaborated on the possibility and implications of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) developing into a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). The talk also addressed a reconciliation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as key foci of Asia-Pacific integration. On the case of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Prof. Aggarwal identified bureaucratic politics as source of impasse. There are two classes of impasse at hand: 1) over the scope of agenda (often concerning market access and regulatory issues in financial services, as well as rules about digital privacy and data protection); and 2) deadlock given agreed scope. Ultimately, Prof. Aggarwal emphasizes that “competing negotiations in the Asia Pacific reflect not only changes in political regional order but also momentum of greater regional institutionalization.”
In the discussion, the question of whether South Korea should have joined the TPP agreement was also raised.
Date/Time: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 / 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Place: Conference Room (2F), The Asan Institute for Policy Studies
⇨ Vinod (Vinnie) Aggarwal is a professor in the Travers Department of Political Science and holds a Travers Family Senior Faculty Fellowship, is an affiliated professor at the Haas School of Business, and Director of the Berkeley Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) at the University of California at Berkeley.