Donald Hanna, CIMB Group: The possible collapse of the rule-based trading regime confronts us, argues Fukunari Kimura in a call for action by East Asian nations. From this challenge spring two imperatives: to save the WTO by keeping its dispute settlement mechanism functioning; and to revive the WTO as a negotiating forum. As a fallback, Kimura argues that East Asia should develop a network of mega-free trade agreements (FTAs) to partially supplement a possible loss of the multilateral framework. The following comments do not quibble with the gravity of the threat to the WTO and rule-based trading, but rather reassess both the nature of East Asia's development over the last 40 years and attempt to couch the travails of the WTO in a broader fragmentation of supra-national, rule-based institutions that has implications for Kimura's proposed course of action.
Kimura asserts that East Asia's economic gains are linked to the rules-based...