Global Value Chain Integration in Indo-Pacific : Asia, Oceania, US, and the EU

GVCs – which have been key to the process of rapid economic globalisation of the last few decades – are being reshuffled. The role of China has changed drastically to become much more central and oriented towards adding more Chinese value to other countries’ re-exports (i.e. forward integration), but China’s dependence on other countries’ imports for its own exports is clearly waning.Against such a background of increasing economic competition from China, it is important to review the economic linkages of Indo-Pacific members, especially their supply chain integration. The linkages are clearly not uniform, with ASEAN more integrated relative to India, and with the US and China dominating in their own value added into other countries’ exports (i.e. forward integration). Much more integration can be possible with a trade agreement or framework – like the IPEF – which facilitates trade exchanges, amongst other objectives