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Biggest hurdles to China entry into trans-Pacific trade pact are political
Britain joined the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) at a meeting in Auckland this month just over two years after its application, clearing the way for members to consider others from China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Ecuador.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (right) shakes hands with Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee Wang Yi during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta on July 13, 2023. (AFP/Dita Alangkara)
C
hina should be able to meet standards set out in a major trans-Pacific trade pact, trade experts say, forcing members to make a politically uncomfortable decision on whether to let Beijing join a deal created to counter its growing influence.
Britain joined the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) at a meeting in Auckland this month just over two years after its application, clearing the way for members to consider others from China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Ecuador.
China's application, by far the biggest economy, is next in line if they are dealt with in the order they were received, although that is not a given.
When asked whether there was a time frame for when the next applications would be considered, CPTPP host nation New Zealand's Trade Minister Damien O'Connor said: "No."
The free trade agreement has its roots in the US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, developed in part to counter China's growing economic dominance. The US pulled out under President Donald Trump and it was reborn as the CPTPP with members including close US allies Japan, Australia and Canada.
China wants to be part of the CPTTP because the ruling Communist Party places a lot of stock in its economic performance, which has suffered recently due to various trade restrictions, and because it sees the bloc's high accession requirements as fresh impetus for economic reform at home, analysts say.
The absence of the world's largest economy incentivises China to meet the high entry requirements as "the hidden motive" for Beijing is to "defeat the scheme by the US to use the CPTPP as a way to contain China," said Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University.
