Since the conception of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in Indonesia in 2011 and its formal launching in Cambodia in 2012 until it takes full effect in 2022, this regional economic cooperation project has gone a long way in promoting free trade and economic cooperation among its participants. The RCEP connects not only the economies of participating countries but the rest of the world as well.

The RCEP is now the world’s largest free-trade arrangement outside of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It represents 30% or 2.3 billion of the world’s population with the full participation of 10 members of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and five key countries where ASEAN has existing free trade agreements namely Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. With these 15 dynamic economies, the RCEP also accounts for 30% or $38.8 billion of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and almost 30% of the global trade. The RCEP implementation is a real game changer not only for freer and fair trade in Asia but also in the wider international community of nations.

Existing scholarly literatures have already asserted that free trade and open commerce can promote peace by deepening international communications, deepening connectivity, and broadening transnational ties........

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