After the US withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the nascent Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has come into force for more than a year, which has played a positive role in the development of import and export trade among countries in the region. In response to a question from the Asahi Shimbun not long ago, Premier Li Keqiang said that China has a positive and open attitude towards joining the CPTPP.
For China, joining CPTPP is first and foremost an important opportunity to expand economic and trade cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries. Under the impact of anti-globalization trend such as trade protectionism, promoting regional economic integration has become an important way for countries to seek international cooperation. With 11 member countries, CPTPP is the largest FTA in the Asia-Pacific and the third largest in the world, covering about 500 million people and accounting for about 13.5 percent of global trade.
CPTPP includes developed countries with strong economic and trade strength, such as Japan, Australia and Canada, and emerging economies with great economic development potential, such as Chile, Malaysia, Mexico and Vietnam. It is a high-standard trade agreement that combines fairness with inclusiveness and is friendly to developing countries. If China joins THE CPTPP, the trading system could account for 28.3 percent of the global economy, making it a market of nearly 1.9 billion people.
Although at the beginning of the emergence of CPTPP, many people worried that the standards contained in it were too high, the endogenous forces of deepening reform and opening up in recent years are gradually bringing China closer to the standards of CPTPP. At present, China has formed a three-dimensional pattern of opening up from coastal areas to inland areas based on 18 free trade zones. At the same time, the upgrade of Hainan FREE Trade Zone to a free trade port marks a significant improvement in the quality of China's opening-up. The positive list policy of "zero tariff" adopted by Hainan free Trade Port for the first time means that China is constantly promoting the development of free trade and fast benchmarking international.
In addition to tariffs and other trade terms, CPTPP also has strict provisions on intellectual property protection. Although the level of intellectual property protection in China still needs to be further improved, such concerns should not be a reason for China to reject higher standards of intellectual property protection. Adequate protection of intellectual property rights is conducive to promoting innovative development. In fact, the demand for innovation protection of Chinese enterprises is surpassing that of foreign enterprises. Improving the level of intellectual property protection is not only conducive to improving the business environment to attract foreign investment, but also escorts the innovative development of Chinese enterprises. In addition, the implementation of the Foreign Investment Law and the Regulations on Improving the Business Environment has provided institutional guarantee for China to improve its business environment, bringing China closer to the standards of CPTPP.
First of all, from the perspective of external environment, the international resistance for China to join CPTPP is gradually decreasing. Ministers of CPTPP member countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Malaysia, as well as ambassadors of CPTPP member countries including New Zealand, Singapore and Japan expressed their welcome for China's accession in their contacts and exchanges with the CCG. Although the possibility that the US will block China's accession cannot be ruled out, the US has not yet returned to CPTPP and has no say.
Secondly, joining CPTPP not only complements China's own development direction, but also plays a role of "promoting reform by opening up", so as to better play the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and give consideration to the efficiency and quality of China's economic development.
Third, joining CPTPP is consistent with China's principle of adhering to multilateralism and promoting the construction of an open world economy. As the world's second largest economy, China's accession to CPTPP will help curb the momentum of trade protectionism and isolationism and promote trade liberalization on a global scale. In addition, CPTPP attaches great importance to the regulation of service trade and e-commerce. Joining CPTPP is also conducive to obtaining a larger foreign market for China's advantageous industries in the field of e-commerce and information technology, thus creating a fair, free and broad world market for China's service industry to go out.
Finally, China's accession to CPTPP is conducive to contribute to the WTO reform. The CPTPP rules on new trade fields such as service trade and digital economy have gone beyond the scope of WTO, which is also the direction of WTO reform. CPTPP can be regarded as a forerunner in the innovation of international free trade rules. China should take an active part in this process and bring its successful experience to the WTO reform to safeguard the international free trade order.
Objectively speaking, there is still a gap between The standards of CPTPP and China. Therefore, while seizing the opportunity, China should strengthen its opening-up and actively meet the challenges. Future openness should not only include strengthening intellectual property protection and improving the business environment, but also enhance research and exploration in emerging areas of global governance, such as cross-border data flows and international flows of talents.
While actively joining CPTPP, China should continue to firmly advance the negotiation process of multilateral trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the China-Japan-ROK Free Trade Agreement, so as to create opportunities and platforms for China to participate in the formulation of new international trade rules. These trade agreements seem to overlap, but not to be identical. They complement each other. Both of them have provided impetus for the comprehensive promotion of regional integration in Asia, thus stimulating the economic vitality of Asia.
