Brunei - US should aim for more inclusive trade pact

'Involve China in TPP'

THE United States must make concessions within the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) to aim for a more inclusive free trade pact that could potentially involve regional giant China, said an expert in Southeast Asian affairs yesterday.

Tan Sri Dr Munir Majid, a senior fellow at London School of Economics' IDEAS (centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and grand strategy) said the US must not seek to deliberately exclude China from the TPP in a bid to assert economic dominance in Southeast Asia, and to a larger extent, Asia-Pacific.

"I hope the US is not deliberately trying to exclude China from the TPP, we can close the gap by making concessions, being accommodating," he told The Brunei Times on the sidelines of a presentation at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. "If China is not a member, then it's worrying."

US officials have not publicly sought TPP membership for China, whose trading policies are often criticised as protectionist, but Beijing has said it might consider joining.

Dr Munir said that America wants China to concede on a few issues, such as intellectual property protection, before potentially becoming a negotiating party in the agreement.

Beijing has in turn, shifted its focus to East Asian economic integration through ASEAN plus Three - a free trade pact among ASEAN member states plus China, Japan and Korea - that would exclude the US.

"China is thinking it is more realistic to have an East Asian community (as opposed to an Asia Pacific community). So how do you bridge the difference?" he said. "(ASEAN) will have to bring the two together."

"TPP is being pushed so hard by the Americans, it worries me because it may cause the ASEAN platform to go .... China believes the ASEAN platform should form the basis for regional, economic and other activities," he said.

The LSE senior fellow added that America needs to lower its expectations for the TPP encompassing the entire Asia-Pacific region, stating that "it's not workable".

Asked whether the nine negotiating TPP countries - the US, Brunei, Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Malaysia and Vietnam - could meet the deadline set by President Obama to come up with the terms for the agreement by this year's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November, Dr Munir said while the deadline was ambitious, the outcome depended a lot on the US elections in the same month.

"It will take some doing and a lot depends on the US elections. If there is continuity (in US leadership) then there will be hope for the negotiations."

QURATUL-AIN BANDIAL

The Brunei Times

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