Second, attention should be paid to the balance of trade rather than just the amount of trade. Since the full enactment of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement in 2010 – the largest free trade area in the world by population – ASEAN’s trade in goods with China has gone from a surplus to a deficit reaching $45 billion in 2013. “The causal link between ASEAN’s deficit and ACFTA,” the report notes, “merits scrutiny.” This is not just an academic point. An unfavorable trade balance for Southeast Asian countries in their relationships with China has been a political issue in the past, and in some cases this has been highlighted as a priority to fix.