Unlike the European Union’s aim of creating a single market and a harmonized regulatory regime, the WTO is a less ambitious enterprise. Its central focus has been non-discrimination in the form of Most Favoured Nation and National Treatment standards and anti-trade protectionism. But while the WTO is arguably inching closer to the EU paradigm, the Asian FTAs may not be. Only time will tell if ASEAN or a larger East Asian grouping might emulate the EU, or if there will be convergence between Asia, Europe, North America and the other regions, as well as greater convergence between the WTO and FTAs. Presently at least, the idea of an East Asian customs union seems inconceivable. Instead, we have – and are likely to continue to have – a large number of overlapping Asian agreements. A second criticism holds Asia’s FTAs against the standard of other FTAs, generally, and not just against the example of Europe and the European Union. It central proposition is that Asia’s agreements tend to be “quick, dirty and trade light”. One criticism which does not appear to be directed at Asian trade policies as such (e.g. the “shallow liberalization” argument above) has to do with the relative weakness of Asian regional institutions when compared to the EU’s “Cartesian legal formalism”. The fear that the United States (and Europe) could be cut off from Asia’s turn towards a “guild-like exclusiveness” is a fourth worry. More to the point perhaps than fear of an Asian, or East Asian “Bloc”, are the kinds of anxieties seen in the 1980s in the relations between Japan and the United States – i.e. worries about “unfair” Asian protectionism, Asian “competitiveness”, or more recently, of a great sucking sound of jobs relocating to China. Who then fears Asia? The answer depends upon the causes of such fear. Fear of Asian protectionism, protectionist fears about Asian labour and manufacturing, the economic purist’s criticisms, geo-strategic fears about Asian or East Asian insularity, fear of systemic friction, fear of the adoption of a divergent “Asian model” of trade regionalism, fear of an increase in Asia’s clout in trade negotiations, and fear of the adverse effects on the multilateral trading system of increased regionalism make up a wide spectrum of concerns about the accelerating pace and prolixity of East Asian trading nations’ bilateral and other regional trade agreements. None, except for the economic purist’s view and the regulatory and compliance concerns of lawyers and Geneva trade diplomats which we have discussed, reflect the usual reservations lawyers, economists and traditional trade multilateralists share about FTAs
