China can be confident even outside TPP

The twelve Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Ministers hold a press conference to discuss progress in the negotiations in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii July 31, 2015. Pacific Rim trade ministers failed to clinch a deal on Friday to free up trade between a dozen nations after a dispute flared between Japan and North America over autos, New Zealand dug in over dairy trade and no agreement was reached on monopoly periods for next-generation drugs.[Photo/Agencies]

The Unite States and 11 other economies participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations will continue to engage to try and resolve outstanding issues, as they have failed to clinch a final deal after wrapping up their four-day meeting on Friday in Maui, Hawaii. Comments:

The lack of a deal means the TPP will be thrown into the political maelstrom of the US presidential election. And with opposition building in many countries there are reduced chances that a deal will ever be reached on a pact that US Trade Representative Michael Froman declared to be in its "end game" in 2013, but which has only become ever more controversial since.

Lori Wallach, director of the advocacy group, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, August 1

China is the largest economy in Asia; we need it to be part of the TPP. The TPP, we hope, will evolve into the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, the framework for the Asia-Pacific. So the TPP without China, in my view, will be a failed agreement.

Tami Overby, the US Chamber of Commerce's senior vice-president for Asia, July 27

As the world's second-largest economy and the largest in Asia, China remains an attractive market for the TPP participants, as much as they are confined by the transnational agreement. In addition, Beijing's economic influence in the Asia-Pacific region can be hardly bypassed, given that the country's GDP is almost equal to the total of the 11 other economies combined. Even the United States might find it difficult to resist expanding its trade exchanges with China.

china.com.cn, August 1

Aiming to become a major trade power in the world by opening its domestic market, China is expected to enjoy sevenfold growth in its economic aggregate since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Given the notable achievements of the past 14 years, China should be confident about staying outside the TPP negotiations, which may take years to bear fruit.

financialnews.com.cn, August 1