Towards new economic ties or more of the same? An analysis of East Asian state visits to the Pacific Alliance (2013-2016)

• In Event: State policies/Regional integration

Abstract

Since the establishment in 2011 of the Pacific Alliance, its members, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, sought “projection to the world, with emphasis on the Asia-Pacific”, a region with which trade has grown very quickly but with significant challenges, such as deep deficits (Mexico, Colombia) or reprimarization (Chile, Colombia, Peru). Between 2013 and 2016, this interest has been matched with state visits of the three main partners of the Pacific Alliance in East Asia, China, Japan and South Korea which made new proposals to deepen economic, political and cultural ties.
This paper addresses the economic relations of the Pacific Alliance with these countries, and raises the following question: what are the chances to diversify economic relations between the parties and to make them less asymmetrical in the light of the proposals made during the State visits of Asian leaders?
The paper is organized as follows: a first section briefly introduces the macroeconomic performance, bilateral trade and investment relations of the two groups of countries between 1990 and 2016, while a second section examines and compares proposals and agreements reached during the 2013-2016 state visits of President Xi Jinping (Mexico, 2013), Prime Minister Li Qekiang (Chile, Colombia and Peru, 2015), Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Chile, Colombia and Mexico, 2014) and President Park Geun Hye (Chile, Colombia and Peru, 2015, and Mexico, 2016). Finally, a third section discusses these proposals and whether the policies introduced by the Pacific Alliance have the ability to foster new and more diverse economic relations with the three East Asian countries.

Author

• Genevieve W Marchini, Universidad de Guadalajara