Opinion | China needs the Trans-Pacific Partnership to jump-start stalling reforms
Cary Huang says with its stricter rules, the trade agreement could do for the economy what China's WTO accession did - reinvigorate growth
To sceptics, the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership is a demon pact as far as China is concerned. The free trade agreement, which is also backed by Japan, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, and Malaysia, is seen as a blatant attempt to economically contain fast-rising China.
Yet optimists see the agreement as a potential angel. They believe it will provide another opportunity for China's development - if Beijing gets itself inside the tent.
Zhu Rongji used China's WTO negotiations to facilitate bold domestic reforms. Is the current leadership ready to make history in a similar way?
Officially, China has cautiously welcomed the pact. And some reform-minded officials and liberal scholars say the government should go further. China should aspire to join the partnership, as its efforts to comply with the higher standards of the pact - in such areas as environmental protection, investment and labour - would greatly boost its own market reforms. Economic globalism is what China badly needs at this historical juncture.
In the 1990s, China used its negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation to launch reforms. In the same way, it could now use potential membership of the TPP to give stalling reforms a push.
WTO accession was a turning point for Chinese reform; joining the TPP could be another milestone.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership aims to establish the most comprehensive rules for trade in the 21st century. These include enforceable labour standards, environmental protections and curbing the unfair advantages of state-owned enterprises. The deal also requires its signatories to embrace the rule of law and democratic norms. Indeed, the stringent requirements make China's accession to the pact a great challenge, if not a mission impossible.
Yet, these higher standards are not much different from what China itself wants to achieve, if the recent ambitious programmes launched by the ruling Communist Party are to be believed.
After three decades of cutthroat growth, China faces a host of problems that require a fundamental overhaul of its system of state capitalism, so as to sustain growth.