Brunei

After eight years of negotiations, and by video conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic, thirteen countries in Asia and two in Oceania signed, in day 15 this month of november, the “Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership” / RCEP. For it they pledged to leverage free trade relations in the Asia-Pacific region. The document, that brought together the ten member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations / ASEAN- Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Singapore, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam - and the five Free Trade Area partners (ALC) Association - China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea - provides for the reduction of tariffs and the opening of trade in services throughout the block. The India, who participated in the negotiations, decided not to join this stage due to the consequences..

PAD Demonstration. Sukhumvit Road. Bangkok. 20th October 2008. The word diversity can define Southeast Asia. There are so many dialects, ethnicities, peoples and religions in just 4.100.000 km², that the uniqueness of the region and the entire subcontinent becomes consensual. A China de Mao Zedong, is a pattern that is repeated today in Southeast Asia, when the authoritarian government took the first steps to eradicate poverty and homogenize the population creating the mainstays of contemporary China. The process was driven by Deng Xiaoping, in 1979, when starting the opening of the country to the world. Like a mirror, the southeast asia, marked by such culturally different countries has been converging in an intriguing pattern: fragile democracies, authoritarian governments and the general development of ...

And the ship goes… return to the bipolar world?

Authoritarianism: the double-edged sword of Southeast Asia