Analysis of Modes of Global Trade Governance: A Perspective from Regional Trade Agreements

The regionalism featuring new regional trade agreements has been developing rapidly while the WTO-centered multilateral trading system has stalled in the last decade.The latest trend of regionalism aims at developing a new set of rules based on the new mode of international trade, which, therefore, constitutes a challenge to multilateralism, the existing mode of global trade governance. The mode of regionalism, however, has inherent flaws in global trade governance. Recognizing the complementary-competitive relationship between multilateralism and regionalism, the effective global trade governance can only be achieved through a mode that centers around multilateralism, with regionalism as a necessary complement.