China must engage Australia to boost CPTPP chances, trade minister says

Processing Beijing’s application would require the trade bloc’s members to ‘sit down and talk and work through issues’, Australian trade minister Dan Tehan said

As well as ministerial engagement, he called for China to make ‘a real commitment to following the letter and the spirit of the law’ and abide by WTO rules

Reading Time:3 minutes

Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan. Photo: EPA

Published: 4:00am, 22 Mar 2022Updated: 5:38am, 22 Mar 2022

China’s chances of joining one of the world’s largest free trade areas could be hurt by its refusal to engage Australia on a ministerial level, Canberra’s top trade official said on Monday.

Australian trade minister Dan Tehan provided insights into the likely success of China’s plans to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) during an online interview for an industry event.

The trade bloc, which emerged in 2018 from the ashes of a previous trans-Pacific pact that fell apart following the US’ withdrawal, counts Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Canada, Mexico and Peru among its members – and represents some US$13.5 trillion in combined gross domestic product.

Officials from CPTPP members Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, Chile, Japan and New Zealand pose for a photo after a meeting in 2019. Photo: AP

Britain’s application to join the CPTPP, which it submitted in February last year, was last month advanced to the final stage of negotiations – spotlighting the later applications of mainland China and Taiwan, and whether they would be next up for consideration.

Tehan said on Monday that processing Beijing’s application, which like Taipei it submitted in September, would require existing CPTPP members to “sit down and talk and work through issues” – further noting that he had written to his Chinese counterpart upon becoming trade minister over a year ago but had yet to receive a response.

“We’re not even able to sit down and work through the current disputes that we have with China, without having to take them to the WTO when it comes to wine and when it comes to barley, so we would need to see those issues resolved,” Tehan said during the interview for The Economist Impact’s Asia Trade Week.

Calling for “a real commitment to following the letter and the spirit of the law, and also to be able to engage on … a ministerial level”, the Australian trade minister said: “What all countries want to see when it comes to accession to the CPTPP is that everyone who joins is committed to following the rules.”

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x