Playing Both Sides of the Pacific: Latin America’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with China

One of the most prominent trends in Latin America in the 2000s has been the proliferation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) across the Pacific basin. Beginning with the path-breaking Chile-Korea FTA in 2004 up to the Costa Rica-Singapore FTA in 2013, the past decade has seen the negotiation of twenty-two cross-Pacific accords. China, too, has jumped on to the cross-Pacific FTA bandwagon, including its negotiation of separate bilateral FTAs with Chile (2006), Peru (2009), and Costa Rica (2011). This paper analyzes the origins, content, and preliminary outcomes of these three China-Latin America FTAs. The findings are threefold: 1) in contrast with other cross-Pacific FTAs, which include at least one developed country, the three FTAs analyzed in this paper constitute “south-south” FTAs; yet, in contrast with other south-south FTAs, these three China-Latin America accords approximate WTO+ standards vis-à-vis the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its new trade agenda (services, investment, and intellectual property rights); 2) although the motives for negotiating these developing- developing country accords varied, on the part of China and the countries themselves, this did not disrupt the march toward WTO+ status; and 3) while all three of these FTAs elude standard theoretical explanations for the negotiation of bilateral FTAs, the three Latin American countries do share similar reform trajectories and institutional affinities, which sheds light on the decision and capacity of each to negotiate a bilateral FTA with China.

太平洋两岸兼及：拉丁美洲与中国的自由贸易协定

关键词：中国，拉丁美洲，智利，哥斯达黎加，秘鲁，地区主义，自由贸易协定，市场准入，服务业，投资，制造业，矿产业，自然资源。

二十一世纪的第一个十年中，拉丁美洲最突出的潮流之一就是大量达成跨太平洋盆地的双边自由贸易协定。自2004智利-韩国自由贸易协定开创先河，一直到2013年的哥斯达黎加-新加坡自由贸易协定达成，过去的十年见证了22个跨太平洋协定的谈判。中国在这个跨太平洋自由贸易协定的潮流中也不甘落后，积极作为，包括与智利（2006）、秘鲁（2009）及哥斯达黎加（2011）分别谈判达成双边自由贸易协定。本论文分析了这三个中-拉自由贸易协定的源起、内容以及初步的效果。本研究有三个发现，包括：1）其它跨太平洋自由贸易协定至少有一方是发达国家，与它们相对照，本文所分析的三个自由贸易协定形成的是“南-南”自由贸易协定；但与其它南-南自由贸易协定相比，这三个中-拉协定更接近于WTO增强型政策标准，而非WTO和它的新贸易议程（包括服务业、投资以及知识产权）标准；2）尽管各国出于不同的动机谈判达成这些发展中国家-发展中国家的双边协定，对于中国和这些协议国家来说，这并未干扰他们向WTO增强型政策靠拢的进展；3）尽管无法用标准的双边自由贸易协定谈判理论对这三个自由贸易协定进行解释，但这三个拉美国家的确在改革轨迹和制度上具有相似性，这有助于我们理解各个国家如何决定并具有何种能力与中国协商谈判双边贸易协定。

Translated from English by Li Guo