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The general objective of this paper is to study the impact of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on international trade. Due to the decline in the world trade and the rise of trade protectionism since 2010 has prompted the Southeast and East Asian countries to develop a larger trade bloc, i.e known as Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) counter the decline in trade and income growth. In the process of RCEP establishment, ASEAN and China had play a vital to bring all the members in the region together and formed a single bloc to push an economic recovery and to further economic cooperation and development. This paper plan to examine the effect of the RCEP on trade flows on the members and the Gravity Model Method (GM) to be used to examine the subject. Also, the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index will be calculated mainly to look the performance of trade growth across members. Based on the GM its seems that China significantly gain from the RCEP, i.e earn a positive effect from trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega FTA's are majorly driven by a complex nexus of economic and political factors often reflecting protection of sale, a state-centric objective, which pays attention to local societal players. The consecutive pursuit of multilateral trade negotiations and agreements by a small group of economies has positively contributed to boosting the dynamics of international trade. Due to the diminishing economic importance of North America and protectionist sentiment rising in the European Union, economic integration and regional cooperation have been initiated among the East Asia and South East Asia region. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is considered one of the largest economic integration in Asia, functional as a trade bloc. India opted out of the RCEP with raising concerns from certain sectors like agriculture, textile, and allied sectors, among other sectors. However, a question needs attention - Is the decision to retract from RCEP a smart move by India? The current paper aims to answer this question by sermonizing concerns raised by two crucial sectors, i.e., Agriculture and Textile. To achieve this objective, set for the particular study, parameters like Volume of Exports and Imports of India and RCEP, Exports and Imports between India and RCEP nations in fields of Agriculture and Textiles are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of energy security has become an issue of great concern for many countries over the last few years. As the integration and the globalization of the world economy deepens, the rise of the emerging economies such as China and India and the fear of disruption in global energy supplies has become a challenge that developed countries factor into their national security strategies. Since the advent of the new millennium, China's engagement with Africa and its oil investment on the Continent has been interpreted in some policy circles in the US and EU as a threat to their own national security. The advocates of this view are concerned that China's ties with many resource rich and oil producing countries in Africa could undermine the strategic interests of the EU in the continent. This perception of a threat rather than a challenge is what this paper intents to address. The paper seeks to bring an analytical perspective on these questions and assesses the true nature and rationale of both EU-Africa relations and China's engagement with Africa in trade and economic relations and concludes with some policy perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northeast Asia has traditionally been a region rife with historical and political conflicts that display characteristics that seem to follow a path of development different from other regions. As one goes through the massive inventory of international relations theory, it is still uneasy to find an explanation that befits developments in the region. This paper examines the hegemonic stability and evaluates its effectiveness in explaining developments in Northeast Asia, particularly the rise of China. In addition, this paper seeks to test the hegemonic stability theory by readdressing US role in the region and challenges to the regional status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent formation of the field of security demographics has drawn attention to the importance of population as a security issue. For example, Hudson and den Boer argue that the populations of Asia's largest countries are a threat not because of size but because of as unusual composition - excess males. Their argument is based on the observation that, after thirty years of population limitation policies, the Chinese population has a distinct gender bias. There are millions more males than females, creating what has been dubbed a 'bachelor army.' Hudson and den Boer posit that the problems caused by this 'bachelor army' may lead to war. This paper argues that fear about China's population is not new but has shaped the way China has been portrayed since the foundation of the PRC. The large size of the Chinese population was originally seen as a weakness likely to bring down the government. However during the 1950s and 60s the industrious and organized nature of the Chinese population earned the Chinese people the moniker 'blue ants.' It seems more than coincidental that the development of recent fears about China's population coincides with the emergence of China as a major economic power. After analyzing the development of the gender ratio imbalance, this paper concludes that the re-surfacing of fear about China's male population continues a tradition of Orientalist stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the territorial dispute over the Diaoyu, or Senkaku, Islands in the East China Sea has flamed up between China and Japan. This conflict deserves further attention because of its potential of being the spark to unleash a Sino-Japanese firefight. However, this was not the first time the two Northeast Asian great power rivals have at least verbally fought over who is the rightful owner to the resource-rich archipelago and surrounding waters. The controversy can be traced from post-World War II, over the 1970s and 1990s, to today. The entire process of this largely verbal fistfight can be best understood through the Copenhagen School's securitization and de-securitization concepts. Japan, being in the role of the administrator, naturally more often desecuritized the issue in the past than did China, while China mostly strategically securitized the dispute. For the current round of escalation over the dispute, interestingly, Japan acted as initial securitizing actor. This paper aims to contextualize the instances in which the territorial dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands has been either securitized or desecuritized by either party. The analysis adds nuances to securitization theory, especially concerning the role of societal uprisings in securitizing a dispute such as the one at hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]