China has nothing to fear from Trans-Pacific Partnership omission: Australian trade minister
China has nothing to fear from being left out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and should instead press ahead with another regional trade pact to expand its economic reach, Australia's trade and investment minister said yesterday.
Rather than seeking to join the TPP, widely seen as a tool for the United States to contain China's rise, Andrew Robb said Beijing should focus on concluding talks over the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) - a China-led Asian free trade agreement covering 16 countries in the region.
"I don't think China has got anything to fear from the TPP," Robb told the .
While the 12-nation TPP's full text has yet to be released, there have been concerns the pact would prevent China from writing the future rules of global trade and clip its economic clout.
Initially objecting to the deal, Beijing recently shifted its stance and said it was open to the idea of joining the TPP. It was also pushing to speed up talks on an Asian equivalent - the RCEP.
Robb said the quickest route for China was to continue to play a leading role in the RCEP talks and work within regional blocs, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, to get negotiations started on combining the TPP and the RCEP.
"It would be hard to make one big step to a whole regionwide agreement, but if they can take it in stages … I think politically it's far more achievable," the Australian official said.
Despite hopes the RCEP agreement would be signed this year, Robb said negotiations would likely be concluded by the end of next year and that issues such as opening up market access remained a major challenge. In China's case, opening up the agricultural sector - in particular production of rice, sugar, cotton and some grains - could be politically sensitive.
By 2025, there could be "one free trade area for Asia-Pacific, a combination of TPP and RCEP", Robb added.
Despite being touted as an ambitious deal, some analysts have cast doubt on the benefits of the TPP and many signatories have already signed separate free trade agreements with China.
Beijing and Canberra signed their trade deal in June, a move Robb described as "significant" for Australia. But opposition in parliament had grown since then, as critics said the deal could threaten Australian jobs.
Robb said the Australian government was now in discussion with the Labor opposition party and was willing to "give them comfort in a couple of areas" without changing the agreement.
He said he was confident the deal would pass through parliament by the end of this year.
