China applies to join Asian trade deal US abandoned

Bloomberg

China applied to join an Asia-Pacific trade pact once pushed by the US as a way to isolate Beijing and solidify American dominance in the region.
The country submitted a formal application letter to join the deal, known officially as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to a statement in Beijing.
The treaty was originally envisioned by the US as an economic bloc to counterbalance China’s growing power, with then-President Barack Obama saying in 2016 that the US, not China, should write the regional rules of trade. His successor Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2017, with Japan leading the revised and renamed pact to a successful conclusion the following year.
The application is result of months of behind-the-scenes discussions after President Xi Jinping said in 2020 the nation was interested in joining.

The application is certain to spark a reaction from Washington, where a number of lawmakers had already expressed concern about China’s efforts to join.
There have been no signs from the administration of President Joe Biden that it’s interested in rejoining the deal.
The application is the result of months of behind-the-scenes discussions after President Xi Jinping said in 2020 the nation was interested in joining. China is the second country to apply to join the 11-nation deal, after the UK asked to become a member earlier this year.
“It’s a perfectly rational calculation by the Chinese leadership,” said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels. “Given how the Chinese market is driving the economic recovery, their cards will never be this strong again. Or rather, the cost of rejecting China’s application will never be this high.”
The application underlines the increasingly complicated geopolitical situation in Asia, where China is the dominant economy and main trading partner for many, but competition with the U.S. is getting worse. Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Japan are CPTPP members and close allies of the US, but along with China they’re also members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which was successfully negotiated last year.
Military and diplomatic tensions between China and Japan, the largest economy in CPTPP, have been increasing due to Beijing’s increased military presence around islands that both nations claim as their own, Chinese threats to Taiwan, and other factors.
Regarding China’s application, “Japan must look properly at whether it is ready to reach the high level of TPP,” Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu said in Tokyo Friday. “We will confer with other member countries and deal with this, taking into account strategic issues,” he said, adding that the UK’s application would be dealt with first.
Taiwan had also expressed interest in joining CPTPP and had been talking with members of the group, with some Japanese ruling party lawmakers last month supporting its entry. However, the Chinese application will complicate that as Beijing opposes Taiwan joining any international organization or group.