My Take | Beijing upended by Taipei bid to join pact
- Every now and then, the island pulls a fast one on the mainland that is not only infuriating, but amusing for being too clever by half, such as its application to join the CPTPP immediately after the one by Beijing
Beijing is unlikely to be allowed to join the 11-country Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, as admission has to be by a unanimous decision. Getting past Japan and Australia will be tough.
But what the Chinese application does signal is that Beijing wants trade, not war in the Indo-Pacific, unlike the Americans. After all, it was Washington which first started the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), ironically, to contain China, then abandoned it. How can you count on Washington? The Chinese ask US allies and CPTPP member states.
With the shock announcement of the Australia-UK-US alliance, along with the promise of nuclear-powered submarines to Down Under, Beijing also has an excellent argument that not only is the US a fickle ally, it is also a bully bent on escalating an arms race in Asia.
Are the Quad alliance of the US, India, Japan and Australia and the long-standing “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing arrangement of English-speaking countries not enough already to contain China, not to mention myriad bilateral military deals the US has individually with numerous countries across Asia?
Understandably, France thinks it has been “stabbed in the back” – literally the words of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian – by Australia’s unilateral cancellation of a submarine deal with Paris; and India is peeved Washington won’t help it build its own nuclear submarines. Sounds like Washington only truly trusts not just Western nations, but ones that primarily speak English.