The TPP's dynamics, and the response required by China and other countries to it, flow from the TPP's nature. As the TPP legally enshrines features which led to slowing U.S. growth, creating negative direct and indirect consequences for the U.S. population, the TPP has become the subject of major U.S. political opposition. The two leading Democratic Party presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, oppose the TPP as well as the leading populist Republican candidate Donald Trump. It remains to be seen if the U.S. will ratify the TPP.

Second, the institutions the TPP imposes on participating economies, and the right the U.S. and its companies acquire to override participating countries governments, will inevitably lead to rising opposition in participating countries as well as locking them into slow growth. This will necessarily lead participating countries to seek free trade and other agreements with non-TPP members such as China whose economies are undergoing more rapid growth.

Third, the U.S. strategic aim is not to exclude China from the TPP. Indeed this would defeat the TPP's purpose as China would then not be subject to TPP constraints which slow other economies. If China remained among more rapidly growing economies outside the TPP, this would inevitably lead to other countries seeking agreements with China. The aim of the U.S. is therefore to negotiate with China at a later date.

Assuming that the TPP is ratified at all, China's interests and those of other countries, therefore, lie in allowing it to be clearly shown over a period that the TPP will not work to enhance growth. This will then give China the choice, depending on the circumstances, of either negotiating agreements with individual TPP members as part of its Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership strategy, or negotiating a more general revision to remove the more damaging features of the TPP and allow China to participate in a wider agreement aimed at more rapid economic development.

The writer is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/johnross.htm

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