- The ASEAN-GCC-China meeting in May 2025 points to an increasingly coordinated response from the Global South to growing protectionism in the world economy
- The format of economic negotiations that involves the participation of regional integration blocs significantly reduces the time and coordination costs of lowering trade barriers
- Going forward the trilateral format could be expanded to include other regional blocs within the framework of the BRICS+ circle
One of the key events in the global economy at the end of May 2025 was the ASEAN-GCC-China meeting conducted during ASEAN’s summit chaired by Malaysia. This was the first such meeting held in trilateral format with a key focus being the intensification of mutual trade ties against the backdrop of escalating US trade restrictions. Greater coordination across the main centers of the Global South in lifting trade barriers is likely to be further expanded to include other regional economic blocs – in this respect the BRICS+ platform may prove to be crucial in multilateralizing such liberalization initiatives across the developing world in the future.
The Joint Statement released after the ASEAN-GCC-China trilateral meeting contained a number of important priorities outlined with respect to the key areas of economic cooperation such as economic integration, connectivity, energy security and sustainability, digital transformation as well as food and agriculture[1]. With respect to the trade sphere, the statement reaffirms “the central and indispensable role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the core of the rules-based multilateral trading system, which provides a predictable, transparent, non-discriminatory and open global trading system”; it also calls for promoting free trade and the full conclusion of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area 3.0 Upgrade Negotiations, as well as an early conclusion of the China-GCC Free Trade Agreement negotiations. In the financial sphere the statement emphasizes the need for exploring regional financial cooperation, including in the sphere of capital markets as well as cooperation on local currency and cross-border payments.
Importantly, ASEAN and GCC represent crucial dimensions for China’s foreign trade, with ASEAN being a key regional partner that already has an FTA with China and that represents an important platform for global industrial development; at the same time the GCC is a key provider of oil and gas resources in global markets, while also serving increasingly as an important platform for economic diversification and sustainable development. Both regional blocs are among the most advanced in the global economy and their mutual cooperation could serve as a base for broadening the “RTA-to-RTA” economic cooperation through adopting advanced economic policies and international best practices.
In this respect, the trilateral format that brings together two regional integration blocs and the largest developing economy may provide a framework for further expansion in South-South ties in the economic sphere. Such a format may be replicated by China with respect to other integration blocs and regional organizations from the Global South, including the AfCFTA in Africa and Mercosur in Latin America. Such trilaterals may be instrumental in boosting economic cooperation across the Global South between regional integration blocs – a trend that later may be multilateralized to the wider BRICS+ format that comprises the bulk of the regional integration projects from the developing world. By bringing in regional integration blocs rather than individual economies into such troikas China significantly reduces the time and coordination costs associated with similar efforts at the country to country level. This in turn allows China and the rest of the Global South to react more quickly to the shocks sustained from higher import tariffs being introduced in the advanced economies. Another benefit is that dealing with regional integration blocs opens up new lines of communication and economic diplomacy that allows China to by-pass and overcome tensions experienced at the country-to country level.
In the end, the ASEAN-GCC-China meetings may signal a more coordinated response of the Global South to protectionist pressures and a readiness to explore new formats of economic cooperation that may involve the participation of regional integration blocs in opening markets to trade. The region-to-region path of trade liberalization becomes all the more important, given that trade policy in the global economy and in the Global South is increasingly delegated to the level of the regional bloc, which makes the regional players indispensable in the discussions concerning the opening of markets. Through developing such new formats of economic cooperation, developing economies are likely to further boost South-South trade and investment and raise the weight of the Global South in the world economy.
[1] https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Final-Joint-Statement-of-the-ASEAN-GCC-China-Summit-27-May-2025.pdf
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
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