In a likely response to the U.S.-led “Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),” China mulls the formation of an “Asia-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTAAP).” China’s assistant commerce minister, Wang Shouwen, reportedly stated that a working group might be established to discuss the feasibility of the FTAAP. Wang was quoted to have said that "This year, as the host of APEC [Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation], China wishes to turn the FTAAP from a long-cherished wish into action." (The FTAAP is yet another mega-regional trading bloc in the Asia-Pacific region, next to the ASEAN-led “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).”)
So, now we have the TPP (trans-Pacific), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) (transatlantic), and RCEP/FTAAP (Asia-Pacific) going on. These mega-blocs, which are exclusive and preferential (“members-only”) after all, sound more like “fortresses,” rather than mere regional trading agreements. Here, one might experience a historical déjà vu. Against the backdrop of the then deadlocked Uruguay Round, three fortresses (or mega-regional trade initiatives) came to light in the late Eighties and the early Nineties: the European Union (after the passage of the Single European Act in 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty in 1992), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the APEC. (Of course, the APEC is a soft, non-binding forum.)
Note that the contemporary economic (trade) regionalization appears to be linked inextricably to security or international political considerations. The U.S. president’s recent trip to East Asia, in which the TPP was one of main highlights, was silhouetted against the so-called “Pivot to Asia.” The TTIP has been touted as an “Economic NATO.” Russia is reaching out to China with an eye to bilateral economic deals in key areas, such as enery. Granted, any serious regional trade agreement cannot but have certain geopolitical ramifications. But, to what extent can, or should, trade be a foreign policy tool? Would it be too alarmist if one associates the recent intensification of trade regionalism with the devastating interwar bloc phenomenon?