OBELA Analysis

The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) indicates a strengthening of regionalism in Asia while in the West it is in decline.

By the end of the last decade, the trade order and multilateralism were already being questioned. Some elements caused the crack in the globalization process in the West. The trade war between China and the United States; the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union; the emergence of populist and conservative governments in Europe of a nationalist nature, among others.

Latin America is not a region free of similar processes. The Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), one of the most important integration projects that has been developed in the region, shows slight setbacks in its integration process.

In the midst of the turbulence caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the world's largest free trade agreement (FTA) was signed. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is made up of 15 countries. The new region represents a third of the world's GDP and population and 29% of world exports. 

Within the treaty, the following issues are addressed: trade, investment, financial and digital services, intellectual property and technological cooperation. Likewise, it is limited to a trade treaty and not an economic integration process, with free circulation of factors.

China wins a huge trade agreement that plants it as the new face of multilateralism, in view of the abandonment of it by the United States. International cooperation has taken a new dynamic with China at the forefront with long term regional planning.

he speed and effects of climate change create a crisis even more severe than the pandemic. The current trajectory of development has jeopardized the balance of the ecological system that supports it.

Due to the growing influence of humans on nature, biogeochemical cycles have been drastically altered and biodiversity has been reduced at a threatening rate. Causes include rising global temperatures. The Latin American and Caribbean region is mainly affected by climate change.

As a result of the pandemic, industrial activities, the number of flights and mass events have been reduced, resulting in positive but temporary impacts on the environment; however, there have also been other negative impacts such as the increased use of single-use plastics and the expansion of household and hospital waste.

The pandemic brings to the table the complex interaction between the systems of planet Earth and the current structure of social, economic and environmental policies.