After the "official announcement"| of China, the US media woke up like a dream...

"It's a wonderful move."

After learning that China had formally submitted an application to New Zealand to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman lamented.

Friedman noted that China has become the biggest challenger to U.S. dominance in setting the rules of today's international trade and diplomatic system.

What makes him even more amused is that former US President Barack Obama participated in the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the predecessor of the CPTPP, in order to counter China's economic strength in the Pacific region, while the United States withdrew from the TPP when Trump took office.

If it is only the United States "withdrawing from the group", the United States may not pay too much attention, but now seeing that China wants to join the "group chat" of the United States to withdraw, the US media is a little stuck.

Today (September 26), the US "Capitol Hill" daily newspaper website said that China's decision to apply for membership in the CPTPP has brought a set of "huge economic and diplomatic challenges" to the United States, because China's accession to the CPTPP will deal a serious blow to the economic governance of the United States and further strengthen China's leadership position in the Indo-Pacific region.

The article worriedly said that the United States is now facing a flipped script, and as China prepares to join, the United States can only "stand on the sidelines" and is still uncertain about how to play a leading role in Indo-Pacific trade.

Biden officially took office in January this year, and since he is so worried now, has the US side not considered "returning" to the CPTPP for most of the year before that?

In fact, the issue was raised before Biden was sworn in, with the Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) quoting analysts as saying in January that the era of trade liberalization was over and that it would be difficult for biden to rejoin the CPTPP, and that it should not be a priority.

File photo: May 16, 2019, local time, Santiago, Chile, after the comprehensive and progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) meeting, the representatives of participating countries took a group photo. (People's Vision)

However, China has proved with practical actions that the era of trade liberalization is far from over.

China's application to join the CPTPP is not a sudden move, and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Informal Meeting held in November last year, China has stated that it "will actively consider joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement." This is also the first time that a Chinese leader has made such a clear statement about this agreement on an international occasion.

In January, Germany's Der Spiegel magazine mentioned China's readiness to join the CPTPP, saying the move was in line with a strategy aimed at increasing China's influence, expanding its currency's range of activities and allowing it to take deeper roots in the global economy.

In February, China announced informal talks with some member states, but did not release details.

Since then, Chinese officials and officials from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and other countries have held technical talks on the details of the CPTPP. In a report in May, Bloomberg noted that many CPTPP countries are heavily dependent on trade with China. If China does join, it will become the largest economy in the partnership and further cement its central position in trade and investment in the region.

According to Bloomberg, many CPTPP members are allies or friends of the United States and still hope that the United States will eventually return to the agreement. They may decide to postpone a decision on China to see if the United States will change course again.

However, the United States is still "firmly on the Diaoyutai" on the issue of returning to the CPTPP. The reason why the United States is not in a hurry may also take into account the difficulty of China's accession to the CPTPP, after all, it needs the consent of all CPTPP members, but after the Chinese side formally applied for accession, the US media woke up like a dream and found that this matter did not seem to be as difficult as initially thought.

On the one hand, China is the largest trading partner of nine of the 11 members of the CPTPP, and it may not be as difficult for China to meet CPTPP standards as widely believed. On the other hand, in order to allow developing countries such as Vietnam to join the CPTPP, the agreement gives them flexibility in some aspects so that developing countries can move forward with reforms, which provides a precedent for China.

Compared with the above two points, what worries the Capitol Hill daily is that if China successfully joins the CPTPP, it may rule out the possibility of the United States returning to the agreement, because the United States will have to negotiate with China for joining the CPTPP.

"It's a satire that's too hard to bear." The article sighed.

But China is just pushing its own reforms and actively advocating trade freedom, will this really hinder the United States? In fact, the root cause of the problem is still in the United States, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun pointed out that the unions that are the basis of Biden's support oppose the CPTPP. Negative opinions are also deeply rooted in the opposition Republican Party, and if the return process is advanced, it will inevitably face a headwind. With the midterm elections of autumn 2022, which the ruling Democratic Party may face, Biden lacks the political space to risk action.

This is really an unbearable irony.

Source: Reference News Network