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Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
ChinaDiplomacy

China should ‘carefully consider’ whether to join Japan-led trade pact, ex-minister says

  • Chen Deming, a former commerce minister, says Beijing needs to assess Tokyo’s role in the CPTPP
  • Remarks come as economists debate if the country should try to fill the gap created by the US withdrawal

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Chen Deming, who was commerce minister from 2007 to 2013, said Beijing had to consider Japan’s role in the pact when deciding whether to join. Photo: SCMP
Laura Zhou

A former Chinese commerce minister has cautioned that Beijing should carefully assess whether to join a Japan-led multinational trade pact abandoned by the US three years ago.

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Speaking at a Tsinghua University forum in Beijing on Saturday, Chen Deming said China must not make a hasty decision on the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), despite calls from economists and experts for it to join.

Chen, who was commerce minister from 2007 to 2013, said Chinese policymakers needed to consider Japan’s role in the pact when weighing up the move.

“Japan is now the leader on CPTPP … so we need to study what the deal is between the US and Japan [on this] and where the new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga stands on the issue,” he said.

“[China] has looked into it and we understand that Japan does not actually see itself as the real master behind the CPTPP and it’s more like a proxy for the US,” said Chen, now president of the government-led China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment.

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“What it wants is for the US to later rejoin the group, that’s why Japan is ambivalent about China taking part in the CPTPP and why it hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for it. This is the crux of the matter and we need to carefully consider the problem in deciding if we should join the CPTPP.”

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