As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has announced his intention to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, some of America’s trade partners in the Pacific region are looking to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to fill the void.
Though usually described as a Chinese-backed plan, RCEP originated from an attempt to forge individual free-trade agreements between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and six other countries—Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand—into a trade bloc. China would be the biggest country economy in the group, while the U.S.A. would be excluded…