On Feb. 1, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) came into effect in South Korea. Ernesto Zedillo, director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former president of Mexico, stressed that open markets benefit participating countries, but he also cautioned that attention to the multilateral trading system should not be diminished when we opt for regional trade agreements, appealing for the re-invigoration of a truly open, non-discriminatory multilateral trading system. Speaking of democracy, he said it's not always good to try to promote it from outside, and added that no country really has the "total clean moral authority" to do so.