NEW DELHI:

The deal for India to join proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has split the 16-member grouping at the Bangkok meet between those who want to toe the Chinese line to close the deal regardless of what India does and those who want India in to balance Chinese dominance.Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad, a pro-China voice, who recently targeted India over the Kashmir issue, went to the extent of giving the negotiation logjam an American twist. He reportedly said he was in no doubt that the Asean bloc was now being targeted by the US administration with a hostile trade policy designed to ‘bully’ individual countries into granting better access for US exporters. He warned that Asean unity was the only answer even if it meant closer economic ties with China However, behind the scenes, intense efforts are being made to negotiate some announcement at the RCEP summit on Monday to demonstrate that the biggest free-trade agreement in the world could become a reality,has learnt.While Malaysia wants to expedite RCEP conclusion, key SE Asian and East Asian states are not favouring RCEP minus India.PM Narendra Modi is in Bangkok to attend Asean, East Asia and RCEP summits and is of the opinion that India has put forward ‘reasonable proposals’ in a clear manner and is engaged in talks with ‘sincerity’ for the free-trade deal.Even as the summit pushes to take a step forward on the project, which aims to create the largest free-trade area in the world between Asean and China, India, Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand, there are reports that negotiations may remain inconclusive and continue over the next few months. India is clear that a mutually beneficial RCEP, in which all sides gain reasonably, is in the interest of all the nations involved in talks.The 16 countries negotiating the deal are expected to come out with a joint statement without concluding the deal in Bangkok, according to media reports from Thailand, Japan and Singapore.According to Japanese TV channel Fuji News Network, the negotiations during a preparatory meeting between the trade ministers of RCEP member countries held on November 1 failed to reach an agreement. This was because India was not willing to lower or eliminate tariffs on several products owing to the threat of cheap imports from China.RCEP is being seen as a win-win situation for China in some quarters, drawing it closer to nations in the Indo-Pacific , including Asean, while the US is pursuing an aggressive negotiation strategy which is now seen as targeting Thailand and Malaysia.Officials from two RCEPmember countries who did not wish to be identified said there was a high possibility of inking a deal at the bloc’s summit on Monday if India agreed to be a part of it. Bangkok Post, Thailand’s leading English newspaper, quoted Juan Sebastian Cortes-Sanchez of the Asian Trade Centre in Singapore, a research group, as saying that “I don’t think we can expect a complete, crisp agreement, with all the tariff schedules and information, and all the chapters completed. But we would expect them to sign something so that they can move forward with it.”Bangkok Post also reported that the RCEP talks are not likely to conclude until February, 2020 as "a major country, believed to be India still has concerns.The RCEP negotiations were launched by ASEAN leaders and the six other countries during the 21st ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh in Cambodia in November 2012.The objective of launching RCEP negotiations was to achieve a modern, comprehensive, high-quality, and mutually beneficial economic partnership agreement among the ASEAN member States and its FTA partners.