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En las primeras décadas del siglo XXI, cambios significativos en la política y economía mundiales están en curso, especialmente la creciente participación de los bordes del Pacífico en la producción mundial y su creciente integración productiva y regional. En las últimas décadas, esta región se ha cambiado en la más dinámica en términos de crecimiento económico a nivel mundial, lo que ha impulsado sus procesos integrativos, especialmente los mayores acuerdos comerciales vigentes, y se destaca la constitución del RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership). La consolidación de este megabloque, en China como su principal promotor, enfatiza el gradual desplazamiento de Estados Unidos como centro geoeconómico y de liderazgo de la integración productiva en el Pacífico, con consecuencias geopolíticas significativas. La dinámica de transferencia del centro de comercio y de las cadenas productivas en la región, actualmente en proceso de concentración intrarregional en Asia-Pacífico, con gran relevancia para el rol chino en la formación de nuevas estructuras geoeconómicas, refuerza y consolida los cambios de orden geopolítico. Las disputas Estados Unidos-China, de preponderancia de sus proyectos geopolíticos y geoeconómicos distintos en el Pacífico, están basadas en los diferentes resultados e intereses estratégicos de sus políticas exteriores. Estas dos potencias disputan inserciones privilegiadas y apoyos en los mercados y sociedades de la región, especialmente entre los países de la ASEAN (Asociación de Naciones del Sudeste Asiático) y las otras potencias tecnológicas del Pacífico – Japón, Corea del Sur y Taiwán. Las distintas configuraciones de adhesión de acuerdos económicos y políticos, como el RCEP, el CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership), el Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), y el IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework), alinean la intensidad de los choques en términos de preferencias entre geoestrategias distintas para el Pacífico – una estrategia del Asia-Pacífico, de preponderancia geoeconómica con cooperación china, y una estrategia del Indo-Pacífico como concurrente, de carácter geopolítico sobresaliente a partir del asumido liderazgo de Estados Unidos en acuerdos de seguridad regional. Estas disputas por preferencias y adhesiones distintas se configuran progresivamente en carácter mutuamente exclusivas, como la participación en la estrategia del Indo-Pacífico por parte de Estados Unidos, en un intento de rechazo de una progresiva integración en Asia-Pacífico con protagonismo chino, mientras la reducción de barreras comerciales en la región está de acuerdo con la tendencia de desplazamiento de transacciones con otras regiones para el desarrollo del comercio intrarregional. Estos elementos competitivos forman alineamientos geopolíticos distintos, y plantean China y Estados Unidos gradualmente en posiciones opuestas. Por lo tanto, el argumento central de este artículo propone que las geoestrategias distintas de Beijing y Washington son basadas, respectivamente, en los encuentros de la geoeconomía vs geopolítica; así como en la propuesta china de profundizar la integración económica regional y el establecimiento de compromisos multilaterales, en choque con las posiciones americanas de estrategia militar de contención, a partir de sospechas de otras potencias regionales con el ascenso chino, frecuentemente descrito como una forma de amenaza. Sin embargo, la retórica con enfoque en seguridad todavía no fue suficiente en modificar significativamente la progresiva integración de Asia-Pacífico.
In the first decades of the 21st century, significant changes in global politics and economics are underway, especially the growing participation of the Pacific Rim in global production and its growing productive and regional integration. The Asian economic recovery, in a historical process of convergence resulting from its industrial catching up, and the historical return of its greater participation in the world economy, place the Asian borders of the Pacific as the most dynamic region in economic terms of the 21st century. China, in turn, becomes the main geoeconomic power that emerged from this process, which has important regional consequences in Asian productive integration, in trade flows, in China-United States disputes, as well as geoeconomic and geopolitical instruments with structural changes. The process of productive fragmentation, with the participation of multiple geographically close economies, based on the export of intermediate goods and the re-export of final goods to the United States and among each other, has shaped Asian productive integration and the establishment of current trade agreements in this region. This has resulted in a progressive promotion and consolidation of the regional integration process. The formation of large blocs, as well as the processes of political and economic integration between geographically close countries, are consolidated trends in the international order of the current century. While regional integration is usually the result of decades of gradual establishment, this process in the Pacific has taken a relatively short time. A process initially led by Japan, based mainly on the productive fragmentation and segmentation of its transnational companies, the Asian productive integration was the catalyst for the initial phases of integrating the Asia-Pacific basin. From production bases installed mainly in Southeast Asia and China, integration continued with the participation of the Asian Tigers, and with the rise of China and its domestic market, especially since the 2000s. The institutions of the region that formed a regional integration process began a great consolidation in the 1990s, with the expansion of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) itself, and the creation of consultation blocs, such as ASEAN+3 (APT)–along with Japan, South Korea, and China–and the intensification of bilateral trade agreements in the region. ASEAN therefore became the epicenter of this process, along with a rapid economic and diplomatic rapprochement with China, from the 2001 trade agreement and the broad trade partnership established since then, culminating in mutual commercial leadership in foreign trade in the 2010s. In recent decades, this region has become the most dynamic in terms of economic growth worldwide, which has promoted its integrative processes, especially the largest trade agreement in force, as well as the constitution of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The consolidation of this mega-bloc, having China as its main promoter, leads to the gradual displacement of the United States as the geoeconomic and main center of productive integration in the Pacific, with significant geopolitical consequences. The dynamics of trade center and productive chains transfers in the region, currently in a gradual process of intraregional concentration in Asia-Pacific, and with great relevance for the Chinese role in the formation of new geoeconomic structures, reinforces and consolidates the changes of geopolitical order. The United States-China disputes, over the preponderance of their distinct geopolitical and geoeconomic projects in the Pacific, are based on the different outcomes and strategic interests of their foreign policies. These two great powers dispute privileged insertions and support in the markets and societies of the region, especially between the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other technological powers of the Pacific–mainly Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The different accession configurations of economic and political-security agreements such as the RCEP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), align the intensity of clashes in terms of preferences between different geostrategies for the Pacific. These include an Asia-Pacific geostrategy of geoeconomic preponderance and with Chinese cooperation, and a concurrent Indo-Pacific geostrategy of with the assumed leadership of the United States in regional security agreements. This integration model reinforces the mutual importance of the main technological powers in the region, by intensifying intraregional trade, despite obstacles of geopolitical basis in territorial and maritime disputes, and in the attempt to exploit regional rivalries for geopolitical-geostrategic purposes. This situation is present in China-US rivalries for influence in the Asia-Pacific, and in the United States attempt to form an anti-China coalition in the region, despite the limited presentation, so far, of an United States-led economic alternative to Asian development. This reinforces an advantageous Chinese position in establishing the norms of productive and regional integrations. Finally, the RCEP agreement demonstrates Chinese geoeconomic preponderance within ASEAN, which together form the current stage of deepening integration of the Asian Pacific Rim. These disputes over preferences and different associations are progressively configured as mutually exclusive in an action of containment. An example is participation in the Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States, which constitutes an attempt to reject progressive integration in the Asia-Pacific with Chinese prominence; while the reduction of trade barriers in the region is in accordance with the trend of displacement of transactions with other regions for the development of intraregional trade between the members of RCEP and CPTPP. These competitive elements–in production and preferential markets–form different geopolitical alignments, gradually placing China and the United States in opposite positions, with essential differences in geopolitical and geoeconomic strategic terms. Therefore, the central argument of this article proposes that the distinct geostrategies of Beijing and Washington are based, respectively, on the encounters of geoeconomics vs. geopolitics, as well as in the Chinese proposal to deepen regional economic integration and the establishment of multilateral commitments. This is in contrast with the American positions of military containment strategy, based on suspicions of other regional powers along with the rise of China, frequently described as a form of threat. However, security-focused rhetoric was still not enough to significantly modify the progressive integration of the Asia-Pacific.
