China weighs choices on pacific trade pacts: experts

Likewise, Garrett believes the advantages for China are twofold.

"Being inside the world's biggest new trade agreement that will connect the major economies on both sides of the Pacific would help China in its transition laid out in the 12th Five Year Plan - from three decades reliance on investment, exports and manufacturing to its future of more consumption, more imports and more services.

"At the same time, China's involvement in TPP would reduce the prospect of the trade agreement's becoming a US geopolitical tool to counter China's rise.

"The potential political and strategic dimension of TPP was made clear recently when the US welcomed free trade skeptic and recalcitrant Japan into the TPP camp with open arms, at a time of high and rising China-Japan tensions in the East China Sea." Garrett said.

While the TPP may no longer smack of containment to observers, China is dizzy with US rhetoric of China needing to stand within international convention on convenient issues from the South China Sea, the appreciation of the Yuan to intellectual property protection.

As the US' second largest trading partner, its third export market and its biggest source of imports, China is unlikely to be dictated to when it comes to drawing global trade lines in the sand.

China has either signed, or is in the process of signing, several bilateral and multilateral FTAs.

In fact China is establishing bilateral trade pacts with five of the twelve TPP members (Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore and Peru), and engages with three TPP parties (Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam) through a broader trade deal with ASEAN.

China is also currently participating in the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership which involves 16 countries, including India, and is negotiating the ChinaJapanKorea trilateral FTA.

It is not a nation struggling for economic engagement.

Garrett says the TPP is at least as much about geopolitics as it is about trade and investment.

"China is currently on the outside looking in as the US tries to re-assert its economic dominance of the Asia Pacific century. China should work to join the TPP negotiations as soon as is practical so that it can have its own say on the rules of economic integration across the Pacific."

Basu Das predicts, at least in the short term, China is most likely to keep its distance from the TPP.

"It is not ready to implement the types of obligations currently being negotiated. Rather, China will wait to prepare its domestic economy before considering the 'comprehensive high-quality' trade accord... However, whether China ultimately joins the TPP is a choice China has to make."