Inside Out | China joining Pacific trade pact would benefit all members, but gaining entry won’t be easy

Whatever Beijing’s fundamental motives for applying for membership, the economic logic of letting China join the CPTPP is strong

However, China would have to reform substantially to meet the pact’s requirements in addition to overcoming the scepticism of US allies

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Ministers from member states of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership link hands after signing the agreement in Santiago, Chile, on March 8, 2018. Photo:AP

Published: 3:30am, 27 Sep 2021

In 1949, when American comedian Groucho Marx resigned from the recently-founded Beverly Hills Friar’s Club, he famously insisted: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

It seems China has taken Marx’s thought to heart, but turned it inside out: on September 16, it announced it had applied to join the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, surely aware of the slim odds on being accepted.

For starters, the predecessor of the CPTPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was championed by US president Barack Obama as part of his “pivot to Asia”, and contained numerous “tripwire” requirements carefully contrived to keep China out. That president Donald Trump then petulantly withdrew from the deal in his first few days in office is neither here nor there.

Those tripwires – on things like state-owned enterprises, state subsidies, intellectual property rules – have been kept in place by the 11 remaining members, and remain formidable obstacles for the aspiring new member to overcome.

Even though Chinese President Xi Jinping flagged interest in becoming a CPTPP member at last year’s virtual Apec leaders’ meeting, the arrival of China’s application on the desk of New Zealand’s minister for trade this month was a surprise.

All the more so as it came a day after the week’s other bolt out of the blue: the United States’ announcement of an “Aukus” pact to sell nuclear submarine technology to Australia, as part of a clear plan to draw Australia tightly into the task of patrolling the South China Sea in the face of China’s rise as a maritime power.

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Inside Out | China joining Pacific trade pact would benefit all members, but gaining entry won’t be easy

Inside Out | China joining Pacific trade pact would benefit all members, but gaining entry won’t be easy