China’s CPTPP initiative reduces South Korea’s concerns about entering into an agreement

South Korea will apply to the Trans-Pacific Partnership General and Development Agreement, after China’s request for a regional trade agreement scared Seoul of dissolving its biggest business partner.

Kwon Chil-seung, South Korea’s Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises, told the Financial Times in a series of concerned questions. Photos of CPTPP it had been eliminated.

“The SME ministry and the agriculture ministry have been cautious, but a decision has been made within the government meeting to join the CPTPP,” he said. “The process may be delayed, but the whole process has been established.”

A senior official in South Korea’s trade ministry said a decision on when to submit the request had not been made.

CPTPP was signed in 2018 as the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement negotiated with former US President Barack Obama and designed to reduce Beijing’s economic and political influence in the region.

Donald Trump removed the US from the alliance in 2017 when he was President. TPP was changed to CPTPP, which was signed the following year but does not include the US.

South Korea was reluctant to enter into any alliance, due in part to concerns over tensions with Beijing.

The ministers have also been embarrassed to challenge key constituencies in the March presidential election. South Koreans working in the agricultural, fishing and SME sectors have refused to enter into the deal out of fear of growing international competition.

But only China asked to join CPTPP in September, just a day after the US, UK and Australia announced a new military alliance designed to counter the Beijing military forces in the region. Taiwan asked to join within a week.

“The process seems to be going awry because of the government’s unwillingness to jeopardize the reopening of the market, and the presidential election just three months before,” said Cheong Inkyo, a business economist at Inha University.

“But the urgency has increased because China and other countries have submitted the forms.”

CPTPP general secretary added: “Chinese and Taiwanese questions have changed power.”

According to a summary of 2019 guidelines published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank from Washington, South Korea will receive $ 86bn a year from membership.

“South Korea will not be able to continue to monitor foreign trade and be excluded from international trade,” said Choi Byung-il, a former Korean business consultant and professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

An obstacle that can hinder South Korea is its strained relations with Japan.

The countries affected by a conflict in the World Trade Organization Improving the export that Tokyo established in South Korea semiconductor units in 2019 amid the Japanese war in Korea.

“In Japan you can have different views on applying for South Korea to join the CPTPP,” a Japanese official told the Financial Times.

South Korea’s decision to join the treaty follows a major overhaul of international trade agreements, which the country has chosen not to enter into. Seoul is in the process of approving the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a separate China-led regional agreement that includes 15 Asian countries.