On November 4, 2019, at the 35th ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, representatives from the ten members of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) as well as Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea met for final negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which has been in the works since 2012. Fifteen of the sixteen states announced that they “have concluded text-based negotiations for all 20 chapters and essentially all their market access issues; and tasked legal scrubbing by them to commence for signing in 2020.” India, however, opted out of the agreement due to “significant outstanding issues,” chiefly, its concern that Chinese imports through the deal will increase its trade deficit and harm its national economy. In this RPI Policy Alert, we review the Rising Powers’ responses to the finalization of RCEP and India’s decision to stay on the sidelines. Read the fully Policy Alert here.