China Submits CPTPP Free Trade Application

China goes for AsiaPac trade in Aukus response with the UK adding an interesting component

By Chris Devonshire-Ellis

China’s Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday (September 16), that it has applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The grouping is essentially an Asia-Pacific trade alliance, and includes Japan, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and Mexico in North America together with Chile and Peru in South America. The UK has also applied to join, which given existing dire state of the UK-China trade and diplomatic relationship could add some vim to revitalizing certain trade aspects.

The CPTPP, which entered into force in December 2018, represents about 13.5% of global GDP, has been talked up as the ‘gold standard’ of free trade agreements as it imposes high quality and related standards.

China submitted its application to the government of New Zealand, which handles various administrative functions pertaining to the CPTPP, including new applicants. Beijing had long held interest in joining the CPTPP after the United States withdrew from negotiations during the Trump administration, which had been agreed by the out-going Obama administration and was then called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP was intended to raise standards within the original bloc of nations and reduce their collective reliance on China for trade. Trumps pull out has opened the door to China as the biggest partner for all its AsiaPac neighbors and the only one major trading bloc in the region.

The RCEP agreement covers East Asia, the CPTPP has wider AsiaPac implications. However, for China the CPTPP demands a range of standards for trade and, crucially, labor rights to which it would need to adapt and in some cases upgrade. Beijing would also find itself under more human rights compliance scrutiny – an issue it may conversely welcome as much of the Western criticism about these issues in Xinjiang have been misrepresented in the West and are not supported by neighboring Muslim countries or Uyghur-sympathetic nations such as Turkey.

Interestingly, the UK, should it join the CPTPP will be, after Japan, the second biggest economy in this grouping, and third should China join. If the UK can work out how to contribute to a process that moves China into higher standards of trade and labor rights, then the idea of a “global Britain” and working with, rather than against China may usher in a better era of UK-China relationships. That may result in the UK being a ‘testing ground’ for US policies and trade development to China before Washington enactment – an interesting proposition.

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