completely surrounded by the bones of ice age mammals just in this area alone, where we're standing. there are at least 2 sets of mammoth tusks, but there's also the remains of giants, lots, saber, tooth tigers, and many other species that have been extinct for thousands of years. once a specimen has been cleaned, catalogued and reinforced, it's prepared for transport scientists, government officials see the plan is to showcase the assembled skeletons at a museum inside the mexican capital's newest airport. scheduled for completion in 2022. but will apple al-jazeera, mexico city? this is al-jazeera. these are the top stories u.s. pharmaceutical company went to and says, show its covert. 19 vaccine is 94.5 percent effective in preventing the virus fellow drug maker. pfizer announced its vaccine was 90 percent effective. u.s.

president elect joe biden has laid out his plan to revive the u.s. economy. but stress that coronavirus must 1st be brought under control and he warned, lives are at risk. if donald trump continues to resist cooperating with the transition team, more people may die. if we don't coordinate book my chief of staff, ron klain, and all vaccines important solution to your vaccinated. so how do we get the vaccine? how do we get over 300000000 americans actually once again, it's a huge, huge, huge undertaking. the u.s. national security adviser says he'd like to see the blockade on council resolved. within 70 days. brian said a 1st step would be for saudi arabia and bahrain to fully reopen their space to crawl. former world bank official francisco has been chosen by congress to be

the new interim president. the said national leader in a week to gust assumes the presidency ahead of elections called for april. it here appears. government is sending more troops to the northern tier grey region despite international calls for mediation. hundreds have died in the conflict which began almost 2 weeks ago. thousands of armenians have marched through the capital yerevan demanding that prime minister nicole resign as widespread anger about the deal he signed to end fighting in the disputed region of nickel in a cutback. the agreement secured more territory for neighboring by john. those are your headlines. the news continues here on out is there often side story

15 countries have signed the world's largest retreat agreement. china is in the united states. so why is the asia pacific partnership so important, and how will it help the region's economy? this is inside story. welcome to the program. a 3rd of the global economy comes under the new regional comprehensive economic partnership, or asset china, 10 southeast asian nations, along with south korea, japan, australia, and new zealand have signed up. the u.s.

is excluded, leaving china as the dominant economy in the bloc will bring in our guests in a moment 1st, this report from florence louis in kuala. after 8 years of talks, the regional comprehensive economic partnership or ourselves, is finally signed, meeting virtually because of the pandemic. leaders from 15 countries including china, japan, and 10 members of the association of southeast asian nations, into the agreement in their respective countries. the conclusion of our separate negotiation, the largest free trade agreement in the world, will send a strong message that affirms as leading role in supporting the multilateral trading system, creating a new trading structure in the region. it's an ambitious deal covering nearly 30 percent of global economic output and a 3rd of the world's population. the agreement aims to lower tariffs and open up

trade and investment in stages. it will provide a simpler trading framework, meaning businesses won't have to navigate separate requirements to export to different countries. china is the biggest member in the trading block. its importance in the region grew even more after the u.s. led by president donald trump pulled out of the trade pact in 2017. that deal then known as the transpacific partnership would have been the biggest trade deal in the world. analysts say china is now poised to extend its influence even further. does not mean that things are going to change overnight, dramatically, but as things unfold over the future and new issues come up that need to be, i'm also going to be one of those times and simply because i'm a member and of course, charmers largest member does i think charmin, a very influential position by the future development of trade in the region. this

is also the 1st to free trade deal between rival east asian countries. china, japan, and south korea. the deal falls short in some areas. member states one day able to agree on some of the provisions on a come us. the agreement also does not include environmentalists, the texans, or set labor standards. the pact will come into force once enough, member states ratified the agreement domestically. a process that could take up to 2 years, florence louis al-jazeera kuala lumpur. let's bring in our guests in kuala lumpur. we have far, kim bank, the founder of the strategic pan, indo-pacific arena, think tank. and he's also the former director of political and security community in the asean secretary at in london. this lever senior economist at capital economics, where he specializes in emerging markets and asian economies. and joining us from

washington, d.c. is stan boyd, a resident scholar at the american enterprise institute. welcome to you all. i'll start with you. kim, bang were quiet. china is clearly the biggest economy in this group in what are its priorities now that this deal is signed? why is china so in favor of it? were the headlines all over the world or seems to be accurate in the believe that china will be gaining from this agreement because it's the largest agreement free trade agreement ever. it comprises 30 percent of all the g.d.p. in the world. but having sits, or china is an economy that is all saw trying to, can't fully navigate its way into the future in light of the pandemic that it just came out from. and also the pandemic which might become and that it would out the world in spite of what we have seen in face

a bio and or even modern where vaccine has been. ephesians series of more than 92 to 94 percent. so all china is actually very secure. and very seat in its own cookoo. however, china is a country that relies immensely on globalisation to benefit for our all that from, from all the benefits of retreat, if i may put it that way. ok, so china can gain from it. however, if we look at what the chinese leadership had agreed on the feet planted on october 29th just a month ago, they have basically come out. we've planned

a 5 year plan to try to china into an economy that can provide high quality growth. and it's not state that in the communique of the field plan, i'm but at the back of the mind of all the decision makers and the economic plan, as in china, they have $100.00 smart city plans already in the works. ok. now, if we look at that in the context of what we, what we have achieved today across the region, which is our step. we could come clue that we are eating a few steps behind china because china has already come up with our plans to net to steer its economy, follow it. and it has also be gone beyond the regular deregulation. but

our set is something that focuses more on the old economy, where even the electronic commerce was not given significant and persists except the reduction of carrier. ok. i mean of all right, let me bring in the us, can bang. what do you think china's priorities might be a counterweight to, to u.s. influence? is it more. 'd political than, than, than economic i think it's very much more political than economic that the, this trade is obviously generated a lot of excitement coming as it has on the back of the trade war, which we in the us and shown around, obviously the global pandemic. but all these countries, almost these countries trade quite freely with each other anyway, that tariffs are already very low. so they're basically going to lower tariffs from, from what we're already very low levels to lower them for the economic benefit of this is actually going to be quite small. it's not one of these new age trade deals, like the t.p. p.,

which focused on more than which focus a lot more nontariff barriers. so it's very much a political thing for china. it's allowing to kind of cast itself as a champion of globalization. it's also allowing to increase employment in asia and kind of take over that role from the u.s. . so he's very much a political thing, rather than economic benefits from china suspected stand gareth mentioned there,, the t.t.p. the trans-pacific partnership, which the u.s. intended to be a part of that president trump quit it. would you think president elect biden? want to renegotiate access to the t.p. pier and how easy would that be? should he want to try and do that? i mean, i would hope so. obviously, the narrative here in american politics over the past 5 or so years has been that, you know, to vote for soon to be former president, trump was in part an expression of discontent, about globalization, about about air national trade. and so i think that's made politicians

a little more hesitant to support a new free trade agreement. and in fact, president elect biden has said that he will not out of the gate start negotiating new trade agreement. that said, i think at the same time we've seen a rise of concern about china's role in the world and behavior at home. and so if he were to be or did or d.p.p. can be framed as really an instrument to isolate china, to reduce its parent influence in the region, then i think it's much more politically palatable. i think that's what we should hope for. i think also of course, just like this agreement, the d.p.p. agreement would have significant economic advantages. i, you know, i'd be, i'd hope that president biden would push for us rejoining, regardless of the geopolitical considerations. but i think the geopolitical

considerations are important and in the block of context potentially crucial. ok again, bang. gareth was also saying how already tariffs are very low between these countries on many goods. but how difficult is it to bring such diverse economies and cultures from music, from new zealand to laos, for example, together, how do you get an agreement to be any deeper than this one already? it's how difficult is it? that's a very good question and i agree with my colleagues in the united kingdom, that is, that the benefits are very low. in fact, the research has been done on what the countries can gain out of our set ease,, even when the whole agreement is ratify. the g.d.p. the benefits from the g.d.p. will only accrue to mock a little less than 0.2 percent for each member state. so it's more political rather than economic. having said so on,

this is one of the most difficult agreement to come up with. it has it. as the our commentator mentioned earlier, it took 8 years to reach the, the estates. in fact, i would go even a further bank. the member states of association of southeast asian nations r.c.n. began the process of negotiating free trade agreement with china. we back in 2002 and only achieving that goal in 2010. so that process also took our 8 years, that's 2002 to 2010. and then 2 years later,, the countries decided to x., especially china, japan and korea, decided to expand size and the scale of the free trade area, which is what we now refer to as our set. ok, gareth,

one significant aspect of this agreement is on the rules of origin. just give us a very quickly black people understand what rules of origin means and how about will benefit trade within this new group? yeah, i think this is one of the pretty much the only kind of known tariff benefit that you'll see from this. and whereby it means that if a good is imported, a component is imported from one country to another, then sold off to a 3rd. it basically facilitates this trade, the other wives who get caught up in lots of different tariff level. so it should make it a lot easier to establish the kind of supply chain networks that you see in china across the region. so this should be some benefit. there, i think the other point to make out as well is that most of these tariff reductions are going to take place over a number of years. they're not going to happen straightaway. and they're also missing out the agricultural sector pretty much entirely. so, you know, the benefits from this is going to take

a long time to come to fruition. it's not going to provide a can or short stimulus or short term boost to regional growth in any way whatsoever for the u.s. economy for us export. is there the rules of origin agreement for this new grouping? make it harder for us export as it's something they should be bothered about. i don't think the us exports will be bothered about this so much, but i think what it does show is that they're potentially missing out on of the fastest growing market in the world. that they spent so much time negotiating the t.v. both as a counterweight to china, but also as a way to boost export markets. and then fifa trying to kind of unilaterally withdraw on the 1st day in office was a real hammer blow to them. so we interesting to see what biden wants to do regards the trying to maybe negotiate or renegotiate the u.s. still there. i suspect that, you know, given there's no appetite in congress for further free trade deals, that we probably won't see much progress. and that this is very much a case of wait and see the standard thing u.s.

exporters will suffer because of this new agreement. i mean, i think i agree with, with, with garrett you're right. you have, you have to do affect some of these kinds of regional groupings. one facilitates trade within the grouping. but obviously there's a little bit of divergence of trade that otherwise would have happened with, with 3rd 3rd countries outside of the, the grouping. the, let me, let me go back to something that's come up a couple of times. now i think that there is a bit of disappointment on how you know, this trade agreement does not extend beyond is sort of, you know, your traditional tariff reductions towards things like labor market or environmentalists regulations. i think it's important to keep in mind that that also cuts both ways, right? on the one hand, of course, if you, if you have a deeper dream and that presumably facilitates a more efficient allocation of capital. and there may be equity concerns about the

way in which workers are treated and in some countries, at the same time, of course, the more different countries are, the greater potential is for gains from trade, right? and so you do, you do have particularly large benefits from free exchange when, when countries start from relatively different positions in terms of their regulations, their strengths, their weaknesses. and so i think that that's important to keep in mind that i think there's and we saw that in the renegotiation and of nafta here as well. there is a tendency to try and impose all of your domestic rules on another countries. and that's not always, i think, the way to go from an economic perspective. ok, kim, buying china and japan. they don't already have any sort of mutual free trade agreement, tokyo's, wary of beijing's growing military power. china's economies overtaken japan. how,

how is japan benefiting from this? how might it benefit from this? well, japan is a grain society. the japanese economy was doing very well prior to depend on me because it was heading towards the tokyo 2020 alam pics. but having seen the effects of the pandemic, the impact is actually very galling tourism. is that this next on tourism going to japan has dropped by shut the ring. 99 percent. so basically nothing is really moving. and if you, if the question is on how japan can handle china's and large footprint, our role in the region, i thing japan, which the you cling on to the united states. but then surely hoping that the

trans-pacific partnership agreement would be brought back by present your biden up, or president elect george joe biden right now to stews, to exceed what our set can provide to japan. ok, gareth about australia. i want to ask you, it's china's top trade partner, beijing, a slapped import restrictions of some sort or other on shellfish, wine beef and, and barley after camera called for investigations into the origins of the cove in 1000 outbreak. can australia benefit from this? is there a way for it to diversify away from china? potentially if they could sell more to the markets in asia, those goods that, that china slap tariffs on, but ideally from australia's point of view, this deal will make it harder for china to impose these retired 3 measures. so i think that's the main way that australia could presumably benefit from this. i

think the key point to bear in mind with this discussion on the australia, china spot is that the goods that we're talking about at the moment have been subject to these are attaching chairs. they're actually quite a small deal from australia's perspective. i think there would be quite significant economic ramifications if, for example, china starts to impose duties on australian idol, which is the big thing that australia sells to china. but i think it's very unlikely to happen for the simple reason is that china is very dependent on imports of australia, of iron ore. so it's a very can a symbiotic relationship in that respect. so. so i think that's the kind of key point to bear in mind these, these returns the measures you've seen so far from china being quite small, but they should actually be harder to introduce, you know, if this new agreement does have the teeth of this should have and stan, if we can take a look at global trade, i'll tell you what singapore's prime minister remarked when this agreement was signed. he said multilateralism is losing ground. the assets show support for closer and connected supply chains and closer into dependence. of course,

the trumpet, ministration took the opposite view as hard as the u.k. bragg's it, who will be on the right side of this argument. well, i think the trump and ministrations policies i don't think have, have accomplished done, and in many ways i think have backfired. obviously, the trump administration did not succeed in, in isolating china, or really even in getting it to make direct bilateral concessions beyond promises of purchases of soybeans, which i don't think is the grand geo political interests that likes it. steve bannon used to tout. and so i think there we've, we've seen kind of a backlash. if you look at poll numbers in the us now support for higher levels of immigration have, has gone up since 2016. trade has gotten a bit more popular too that the politics are

a bit more regional. and so that's more complicated, but i do think we've seen a bit of a backlash there. i think it's reassuring to see this kind of agreement in the context of the dependent make and the economic downturn. i think the biden ministration putting china aside for a moment will, will surely return to at least in terms of process, more multilateralism. if not a full embrace of new trade agreements. and so i do think we've seen some pushback and i think it's very difficult to argue that to go to your question on the u.k. . very difficult to argue that the bracket process has been a smooth one. that has brought the u.k. tremendous benefit. i think the u.k. is before ming worse macroeconomic lead on practically any other country in europe . it's obviously been almost 5 years now. they still haven't been able to sign new trade agreements with their main trading partners. they still haven't figured out how to deal with the situation in ireland, etc. and so, you know, i think that, that move away from, from globalisation,

from multilateralism from free trade. and you know, at least some room for, for immigration flows. i think that has really failed and shown to be a bit of a bit of a scam. to be honest. do you think this is a shot in the arm for multilateralism? given that it could take years for this deal to be fully ratified. it's not going to be ratified by at least 6 countries. there's less emphasis on labor rights on environmental and intellectual property protection. what does it say from multilateralism? well, 1st of all, if this is only in the beginning of the journey, a very complex and difficult journey. the agreement itself, there are set. the greenman itself is 510 pages with a lot of an excess. when an agreement has a lot of an excess, it doesn't bode well. to be frank. as a malaysian, the ministry of international trade and industry was very abutilon,

that this will open up the regional economy for malaysia. personally, i disagree completely. i think he's, he's on the wrong wrong side of understanding the agreement because 1st of all 6 countries out of 10 would have to read to fight their green men over the next, next 2 years and then an other night dialogue partners are 15 for on the whole framework would have to read to fight them further and that includes australia. so there are a lot of hoops to jump through over the next 2 years. now there's one little point, it would just like to ok. now we've got to do what the u.k. kalid has mention on roofs of our lives in may be people who are very and mannish and involved in treat will feel very happy because

the rules of origin say that anything that is within their trash will or 40 percent would qualify before i would qualify for the free trash will do export all, sell their goods into another country and anything that is source from and out of the region that are not part of the us are going as far as 60 percent would still qualify and maybe that is the reason for all the billions and, and exuberance and the joy. but personally, i don't think this is a good agreement. ok, gareth very quickly then from you, is this a good sign that multilateralism is the future? or would be a bit too optimistic and ideas like briggs's are the way forward. i think is certainly a step in the right direction. it does show that outside of the u.s., and the u.k. that most countries remain keen on, on free trade and closer agreements with each other. but i think the benefits of

this despite being touted as the biggest free trade agreements in the world are quite small. and they won't come into effect for a number of years, so i wouldn't get too carried away by our gentleman. thank you very much. we're out of time. unfortunately, thanks to all our guests to fark in bang to gareth leather, understand boyda. and thank you too for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website, al-jazeera dot com and for further debate, go to our facebook page, facebook dot com, forward slash a.j. inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter. we are at a j inside story from a bernard smith and the entire team here by thinner and

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