UK should not overreach itself: China Daily editorial

The United Kingdom made a formal request to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday. A move that is understandable given it has snubbed its largest trade partner and there are enormous benefits to be gained from the membership of the 11-country free trade deal.

Announcing the move on Monday, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said the agreement would mean lower tariffs for car manufacturers and whisky producers. It would also create high-value jobs, help rebuild the global trading system, and position Britain "at the heart of some of the world's fastest-growing economies".

All this is what the UK desperately needs to find a new lease of life — both economically and politically — one year after it formally exited from the European Union.

Launched in 2019 to remove trade barriers among 11 nations in the Asia-Pacific region including Japan, Canada, Mexico and Australia, the CPTPP is one of the world's largest free trade areas and represents a market of half a billion people and 13.5 percent of the global economy.

The UK government eyes the membership as a way for the country to establish itself as an active rule-maker in international trade, and help give some substance to its post-Brexit positioning slogan of "Global Britain".

"Applying to be the first new country to join the CPTPP demonstrates our ambition to do business on the best terms with our friends and partners all over the world and be an enthusiastic champion of global free trade," UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed.

It is to be hoped that motivation for joining the trade group is indeed purely the potential economic benefits.

It would not be in anyone's interest if the UK was joining with the intention of making the CPTPP a geopolitical platform to counterbalance China's influence in the region, which was the purpose of the original Trans-Pacific Partnership, the early incarnation of CPTPP as envisioned by the Barack Obama administration.

Speaking at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum last month, President Xi Jinping criticized isolationism and Cold War mentality and called for barriers to trade, investment and technological exchanges to be removed.

China is already the UK's fourth-largest trade partner and its most important trading partner in the Asia-Pacific region. And China too has expressed its interest in joining the CPTPP.

It is in the best interests of the UK that it take a cooperative rather than a confrontational stance in its trade relations with China.