The relationship between regional economic integration and economic globalization is one of the hot issues discussed in academic circles at present. At present, it is generally believed that regional economic integration is the resistance of economic globalization (Xue Yuhua, 2003). This paper holds that the current development of regional economic integration not only does not hinder the development of economic globalization, but also promotes economic globalization in many aspects.
First, the diversity of motives for regional economic integration and the possibility of promoting economic globalization
The viewpoint that regional economic integration hinders economic globalization generally attributes the origin and motivation of regional integration organizations to "confrontation with the outside" or "competition with the outside". Indeed, there have been some regional groups with the goal of confronting the outside world in history. The pre-war Commonwealth trading system and post-war economic and trade associations are typical examples. Such a regional integration organization will inevitably damage the unity of the global market and hinder economic globalization. However, it is worth noting that since the late 1980s, the motives of regional economic integration have become increasingly diversified.
1. Some countries take the lead in establishing regional integration organizations with their close countries because they feel that they cannot achieve the goal of global market opening under the framework of GATT or WTO. Agreements that cannot be reached in global multilateral trade and investment negotiations can often be reached in smaller multilateral or bilateral negotiations. Therefore, in many cases, regional integration is the product of the inability to make progress in global market opening. For example, because many GATT members refused to start a new round of multilateral trade negotiations at 1982, the United States decided to start negotiations with Israel and other countries in the mid-1980s and tried to put pressure on other trading partners. Since the Uruguay Round (1986- 1993) was caught in the slow and protracted negotiations, many countries were worried that the Uruguay Round negotiations would not succeed, so the number of countries participating in regional trade arrangements increased after the 1980s.
2. Some countries try to lock in the process of domestic system reform through regional integration agreements, and inject vitality into further economic liberalization and market opening. A country's system reform often faces great pressure from domestic special interest groups, so the reform process is prone to repetition. Once a country has signed a regional integration agreement with other countries, it is its international obligation to carry out institutional reform according to the agreement, so it will be difficult for domestic special interest groups to change the reform process by adjusting the integration agreement. Therefore, some people think that, to a certain extent, a country's accession to regional integration organizations is a clear and credible signal to the outside world, indicating that its system reform and market opening are bound by integration agreements, so it has long-term stability (Fernandez andPortees, 1998). Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Area Agreement with the United States and Canada, and some Eastern European countries applied to join the European Union. 1997 after the financial crisis, Kim Dae-jung's government changed the long-standing policy tradition of "non-collectivization" in South Korea and started negotiations with Mexico, Chile and other countries to establish a free trade zone. Its main purpose is to show the IMF and multinational companies their determination to carry out economic restructuring in order to obtain IMF loan support and attract multinational companies' investment.
3. Some countries try to eliminate the trade barriers of major trading partners through integration agreements. The most typical example of this situation is the signing of a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States. Since the early 1980s, the United States has continuously used anti-dumping duties and countervailing measures to strengthen trade barriers, seriously threatening Canadian exports that are highly dependent on the American market. The main goal of Canada's decision to establish a free trade zone with the United States is to ensure access to the American market. There are also reasons for the development and growth of the European Union. Europe and the European Free Trade Area were originally two opposing integration organizations, but with the development of the situation, an agreement was finally reached at 1973 to give each other tariff-free treatment for industrial trade, thus forming a large free trade area.
4. Some countries try to improve the negotiation ability of international multilateral negotiations through integration agreements, thus affecting the formulation of international economic rules. In the multilateral negotiation process of formulating international economic rules, the strength of each negotiator is the most important factor to determine his influence and negotiating ability. This has prompted some countries to expect to unite with other countries through integration agreements in order to maintain or enhance their influence in the process of formulating international economic rules. For a long time, with its strong economic strength, the United States has been the leading force in the process of formulating international economic rules. However, the new trend of European economic integration, that is, Europe signed a merger agreement with the market and the European Free Trade Area in 1986, and established a unified European market in 1992, posed a serious threat to the hegemonic position of the United States in formulating international economic rules, thus prompting the United States to gradually give up its long-standing "isolationist" policy tradition. 1987 signed the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement with Canada, 1994 signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, and actively promoted the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
5. Political and security motivations of regional economic integration. An important advantage of regional integration is that it helps to improve the national security of member States. The original intention of South Africa's development is to guard against the threat from South Africa, and there are also security strategic considerations for Central and Eastern European countries to apply to join the European Union to resist the threat from Russia. The establishment of the European Union also has reasons for seeking regional security, that is, on the one hand, it can unite to deal with the threat from the former Soviet Union, on the other hand, it can strengthen trust and cooperation among member States and avoid repeating the historical mistakes of the two world wars. On May 10, 2003, Bush put forward the plan of free trade area between the United States and the Middle East, mainly for political and security reasons.
To sum up, we can see that there are many reasons for the post-war regional economic integration, which cannot be simply summarized by "confronting with the outside" or "competing with the outside". Because of this, we have no reason to believe that regional economic integration will inevitably lead to the fragmentation of the global market or regional confrontation.
Second, the positive impact of regional economic integration on the construction of open global economic and trade rules.
It is generally believed that economic globalization is based on global multilateral cooperation and unified international economic and trade rules, while regional economic integration is based on regional bilateral or multilateral cooperation and regional economic and trade rules (Xue et al., 1995). If we only analyze from the above levels, there are not only significant differences between globalization and regional integration, but also obvious conflicts between them. 1958 when the European economic entity was established, there was a heated debate within GATT about whether the integration organization violated the principle of non-discriminatory free trade advocated by GATT. At that time, six European countries threatened to withdraw from GATT, so GATT had to admit that regional trade agreements were exceptions to the principle of non-discrimination. However, the author believes that to judge the impact of regional economic integration on economic globalization, we should not only statically analyze whether regional integration agreements violate the non-discrimination principle advocated by GATT or WTO, but also dynamically analyze whether the emergence of a large number of regional economic integration organizations ultimately promotes the establishment of a global free trade system or hinders its establishment.
1. In order to minimize the foreign trade barrier effect of regional integration organizations, many members of non-integration organizations actively promote multilateral tariff concessions and market opening negotiations. For example, every step of regional economic integration in Western Europe has prompted the United States and other non-Western European countries to actively launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations. Shortly after the founding of the European Union, the Dillon Round of GATT (1960- 19 1 year) and the Kennedy Round (1963- 1967) were launched at the initiative of the United States, which greatly reduced the tariff level among GATT members. The Tokyo Round (1973- 1979) is a reflection of the first enlargement of the European Union. 1986, the European union passed the single European bill, prompting the United States to advocate more comprehensive market opening in the Uruguay round negotiations. In the early days after World War II, the average import tariff level of countries in the world was 40%, while the weighted average tariff level of industrial products was only about 3% in developed countries, and it has also dropped to about 14% in developing countries. The above situation shows that the development of regional economic integration has constantly generated new demands and injected impetus into multilateral trade negotiations.
2. The experience of participating in regional economic integration can enable the countries concerned to better handle global economic cooperation. The establishment of regional economic integration organizations needs to be based on the premise that member countries open their markets to each other. In this process of market opening, the governments, enterprises and ordinary residents of member countries will gradually realize the positive significance of economic liberalization and master the measures to deal with economic liberalization and economic restructuring. The ability to cope with economic liberalization and market opening can also be acquired through "learning by doing", and it is easier to learn in a small scale, because in this case, each country will face fewer negotiating opponents, making it easier to reach an agreement. The research of OECD proves that the problems faced by regional trade agreements and multilateral trade agreements are basically the same, and the only difference is the sharpness of the problems and the possibility of solving them (Ding Yifan). Therefore, it can be considered that regional economic integration provides an important testing ground for countries to open their markets and enterprises to cope with increasingly complex international business.
3. The completion of regional economic integration will prompt member countries or integration organizations to pay more attention to economic and trade relations with outside the region and the formulation of multilateral international economic and trade rules. There is a view that when some countries actively promote regional integration, they will lose interest in the opening of multilateral markets and even threaten the existence of multilateral trade agreements. In fact, the main reason why many countries actively participate in regional economic integration is that multilateral market opening agreements cannot make progress, and regional integration will inject new impetus into the new round of multilateral market opening negotiations. The change of American attitude towards regional integration is the best example of this situation. Since 1980s, the United States has signed free trade agreements with Israel, Jordan and Canada, and then signed the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, and has been trying to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas. In addition, the United States also actively promotes the establishment of a free and open trade and investment system within APEC. It is worth noting that the United States has not lost its interest in formulating multilateral international economic and trade rules here, but only hopes to maintain its leading position in the formulation of international economic and trade rules through this move, and put pressure on foreign countries to adopt an open market policy that is more favorable to the United States.
4. Regional liberalization agreements can often be the basis for determining multilateral international agreements. Looking back at the rounds of multilateral trade negotiations between GATT and WTO, we will find that many important issues have been solved within some regional integration organizations, while some countries or regional integration organizations hope to upgrade the relevant regional agreements to multilateral international economic and trade agreements under the framework of GATT or WTO. For example, the content of the North American Free Trade Agreement has gone far beyond the scope of the traditional free trade agreement, and there are clear provisions on the national treatment of foreign capital, environmental protection, intellectual property protection, and the opening of financial services. Many contents of the North American Free Trade Agreement eventually became the central topic and focus of debate in the Uruguay Round of GATT and the multilateral trade negotiations of WTO, and provided basic experience for solving related problems under the framework of WTO. In addition, the Information Technology Agreement, which has become an important economic rule of the WTO, was first agreed by APEC members and then approved by the WTO.
5. Regional economic integration can produce an effective mechanism to restrain trade protectionism. In most cases, trade protectionist policies stem from the pressure of domestic special interest groups, and the development of regional integration may weaken the influence of special interest groups on trade policies. Under the forms of economic integration organizations such as customs union and common market, the decision-making bodies of integration organizations have unified decision-making power over foreign trade policies. The transfer of trade policy decision-making power can produce the following two mechanisms to curb trade protectionism: one is "preference-dilution effect". That is, with the establishment of regional integration organizations, within the scope of the whole integration organization, the representation of some original special interest groups in various countries may be greatly reduced, thus weakening their influence on policy formulation. The second is "preference-asymmetry effect" (Hockman et al., 1998). Because member countries benefit from different trade protectionism policies, their policy propositions will be very different, and trade policy as a compromise product may reduce the degree of protection.
Third, regional economic integration promotes the globalization of economic activities.
To judge whether regional economic integration has promoted economic globalization, we should also focus on analyzing the impact of regional economic integration on the globalization of economic activities, especially on the development of international trade and investment.
1. Strengthening economic ties within regional integration organizations is the basis and important performance of economic globalization. At present, international trade is mainly carried out in the form of rapid development of trade within regional integration organizations, and 50% ~ 60% of the total world trade takes place within regional integration organizations. From 65438 to 0997, the intra-EU trade volume reached1268.5 billion US dollars, accounting for 60.6% of the total foreign trade of all member States. In the same year, the internal trade volume of NAFTA was 496.4 billion US dollars, accounting for 49. 1% of the total foreign trade of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Based on the above facts, Allen Lughman, a famous British economist, believes that economic globalization has not really been realized at present, but economic regionalization or regionalization has been realized. The author believes that the above views do have some truth, but it is not appropriate to oppose economic globalization and regional economic integration. Because economic globalization is a process in which economic activities break through the national territory day by day, in general, this process must begin with economic integration between countries with similar geographical positions and easy to achieve institutional coordination.
In addition, if we think that the development of regional economic integration hinders the process of economic globalization, in fact, in a certain sense, we are saying that the existence of a big nation-state is the resistance of economic globalization. Because the essence of regional economic integration is to remove the obstacles that hinder economic exchanges between several nation-states and form the same economic map, and its highest form is complete integration. Although we have reason to think that the existence of nation-state is one of the most important factors that hinder the free flow of goods, services and production factors around the world, there is no reason to think that there are some big countries in the world that are more unfavorable to the development of international trade and international investment than small countries, so we cannot think that regional economic integration will endanger economic globalization.
2. The trade created by regional economic integration is much higher than the trade turnover rate. The so-called trade creation refers to the increase of trade between member countries after the elimination of trade barriers within the integration organization, while the trade turn refers to the transfer of trade direction from non-member countries to member countries after the elimination of trade barriers within the integration organization. Regional economic integration will inevitably lead to a certain trade turn, so many people think that regional economic integration is not conducive to global prosperity, and then hinder the healthy development of economic globalization. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, economists such as Trueman, balasa and Kreinen quantitatively evaluated the trade creation generated by the euro and its trade turn to the European Free Trade Area, and concluded that the trade creation was far higher than the trade transfer, and the integration of the euro did not have a serious economic impact on its most important trading partner, the member countries of the European Free Trade Area. At present, there is a research tendency, that is, the trade development among member countries after the establishment of economic integration organizations is simply attributed to the result of trade turn. For example, some scholars believe that since the entry into force of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the growth of trilateral trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico is only the result of trade barriers outside the region. During the periods of 1987- 1997 and 10, the trade volume between the United States and Mexico increased by 3.5 times, that between China and the United States by 6.7 times, that between Malaysia and the United States by nearly 5 times, and that between Thailand and the United States by 4.3 times. There is no evidence that the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement has caused a serious trade turn. After 1997, affected by the Southeast Asian financial crisis, the trade between Thailand and Malaysia and the United States declined sharply, while the trade between China and the United States kept a high growth momentum.
3. Regional economic integration is an important force to promote the rapid development of international direct investment. To evaluate the impact of regional economic integration on the globalization of economic activities, we can't just analyze trade issues, and the development of international investment is also an important indicator to measure economic globalization. At present, there is ample evidence that regional economic integration plays an important role in promoting international direct investment. First of all, regional economic integration will trigger competition among member countries in attracting foreign direct investment. At the beginning of the construction of a unified market in European countries, multinational companies in the United States and Japan were very worried that Western European countries would adopt a closed market policy and exclude them. Later, they found that regional integration is actually beneficial to foreign investment. France has always been skeptical about foreign direct investment, while Belgium, as a member of the European Union, welcomes foreign investment very much. Many famous automobile companies in the world have established production bases in Belgium. After the establishment of the European single market, a large number of cars produced in Belgium flooded into the French market. This situation makes France realize that the barriers to foreign direct investment will eventually punish itself and benefit other EU member states. Therefore, France began to implement the policy of encouraging foreign direct investment, and quickly became one of the major countries attracting foreign investment in the world. Secondly, in order to prevent being excluded from regional trade groups, multinational companies have to formulate their own development strategies for various economic integration organizations and carry out corresponding transnational investment activities. In this case, the goal of transnational investment is no longer aimed at a single country, but at a certain region. For example, the goal of Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan to invest and build a factory in Britain is to enter the EU market more conveniently. After Britain decided not to join the euro zone for the time being, Toyota built a new car factory in Valencia, a city in northern France, for fear of losing markets in continental Europe and eastern Europe. Finally, regional economic integration will promote member countries to accelerate their direct investment outside the region. The most important purpose of transnational corporations' foreign direct investment is to bypass the trade barriers of other countries and effectively occupy foreign markets. However, the reduction of internal trade barriers brought about by regional economic integration has relatively reduced the motivation of transnational investment in the region. For example, when the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement came into effect in 1987, 66% of Canada's foreign direct investment was in the United States, but in 1996, the proportion dropped to 54%. The situation in the United States is roughly the same. From 1987 to 1997, the amount of foreign direct investment in the United States increased by about 2.2 times, of which the direct investment in Canada and Mexico increased by nearly 2 times, the direct investment in the EU increased by nearly 3 times, and the direct investment in ASEAN countries increased by more than 4 times.
Fourth, other promoting effects of regional economic integration on economic globalization
Regional economic integration will also promote the healthy development of economic globalization by promoting regional peace and maintaining the stable development of regional economy.
1. Regional economic integration can create a favorable political environment for economic globalization. Summarizing the political influence of the development of major regional economic integration organizations, we can draw the following conclusions: regional economic integration can enhance mutual understanding and trust among member countries, thus effectively maintaining regional peace and stability. The economic integration of western European countries has created an unprecedented peaceful atmosphere in this region, and the relationship between France and Germany, the two old enemies, has also been improved unprecedentedly. Historically, the relationship between Brazil and Argentina has been discordant and has been in an arms race for a long time. At one time, there was a danger of military conflict, and even both countries hinted at developing nuclear weapons to subdue each other. However, the "integration and economic cooperation plan" signed by the two countries in198 greatly eased the hostile national sentiments of the two countries, and the Southern Common Market launched in 199 1 year further strengthened mutual trust between the two countries. The emergence of APEC has also provided a platform for multilateral dialogue and consultation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and strengthened trust among many formerly hostile countries in the region.
Of course, to judge whether regional economic integration can create a favorable political environment for economic globalization, we should not only analyze the trend of political relations among members of the integration organization, but also analyze the trend of foreign political relations of the integration organization. There is a view that regional economic integration will lead to political confrontation between regional groups, so regionalization is not conducive to globalization. Judging from the current situation, although with the development of economic integration, there is a growing demand for political integration and diplomacy, but there is no confrontation between integration organizations. Since the establishment of the European Union, achieving diplomatic, defense and political integration has always been an important direction of the organization, and the Maastricht Treaty clearly put forward the goal of establishing political union. However, so far, as a political union, the EU is still very fragile, and it is even difficult to become a political union. The differences among EU member states on the Iraq issue clearly show this point. In addition, even if the EU has made great progress in the construction of political union and achieved political integration, its greatest possibility is to lay a more solid foundation for multipolarization, which does not necessarily lead to multipolar confrontation. The author believes that multipolarization will not hinder the development of globalization, but only build a more reasonable order principle for globalization.
2. The intersection and overlap between regional economic integration organizations provide an important realistic foundation for economic globalization. At present, the development trend of regional economic integration is that cross-regional economic integration organizations are constantly emerging, and there are more and more overlapping and overlapping relationships among various integration organizations, instead of forming a situation in which integration organizations are closed and isolated from each other. In the process of the United States actively promoting the construction of the North American Free Trade Area, the European Union first reached a free trade agreement with Mexico, and then started negotiations with MERCOSUR and Chile to establish a free trade area. APEC has joined forces with major economic integration organizations in the Asia-Pacific region-North American Free Trade Agreement, Australia-New Zealand Economic Cooperation and ASEAN. In recent years, Singapore's participation in economic integration organizations is particularly noticeable. It has not only reached free trade agreements with New Zealand, the United States and Japan, but is also studying the feasibility of establishing free trade areas with Mexico, Chile and the European Union, and actively promoting the formation of a broader free trade area between the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the Australia-New Zealand Close Economic Agreement. The new trend of Singapore's economic integration has produced a strong demonstration effect within ASEAN. At present, Indonesia is actively promoting the plan to establish a free trade zone with the United States, Japan, Chile, South Africa and other countries, and Thailand is also negotiating to establish a free trade zone with India, Japan, Brazil, Croatia, Russia and other countries.
Cross-regional and overlapping economic integration organizations are constantly emerging and accelerating their outward expansion, which makes us have reason to believe that the pace of economic globalization will be faster and faster. Because this new trend of regional economic integration has greatly strengthened the economic ties among various integration organizations and promoted mutual cooperation and coordination among various integration organizations. In fact, the advocates of the Free Trade Area of the Americas expect to promote regional economic integration through the development and integration of small integration organizations within the Americas (Raymond J.Ahearn, 200 1+0).
3. The internal crisis relief mechanism established by regional economic integration organizations is not only conducive to maintaining regional prosperity and stability, but also an important guarantee to prevent regional economic crisis from turning into global economic turmoil. The so-called internal crisis relief mechanism refers to the institutional system established by some economic integration organizations to help member countries in crisis and avoid the expansion and spread of the crisis. Its goal is to ensure the normal operation of member economies and prevent the economic recession of individual countries from turning into a regional economic crisis. For example, when the financial crisis occurred in Mexico in 1994, the Clinton administration of the United States took out $20 billion from the $34 billion foreign exchange stabilization fund to rescue the Mexican government, which not only brought the Mexican financial crisis under control in time, but also did not turn into a debt crisis and financial turmoil in South America and Mexico like 1982. In sharp contrast, the monetary and financial crisis in East Asia occurred in 1997. Due to the slow pace of economic integration in East Asia, the regional crisis relief mechanism has not been formed, and the spread of monetary and financial crisis has intensified, which has had a serious negative impact on the economic prosperity of the whole world.
At present, the crisis intervention and rescue mechanisms of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund are not perfect enough to meet the needs of maintaining prosperity and stability in various regions. Therefore, it is urgent to establish an effective crisis response mechanism in various regions. The currency swap agreement reached in East Asia under the framework of "10+3" is the product of reflection on historical lessons.