Opinion: China Should Keep the Door Open to Competing Trade Pacts

After six years of talks, the world’s largest free trade pact — the 16-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — has reached a critical moment.

The RCEP was designed to cover the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — plus India, Japan, China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Together, these countries contain half of the world’s population and account for nearly 40% of global GDP.