BEIJING — President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel a Pacific rim trade deal was greeted as a sign of a U. S. retreat from Asia and a boon for China, which hadn’t been included in it.
The Chinese government — a longtime critic of the Trans-Pacific Partnership — opted not to gloat, however, instead signaling Tuesday a cautious approach to the new U. S. administration and concern for what comes next.
While the U. S. withdrawal from the treaty could boost China’s role in the Pacific, Beijing is more preoccupied by what else the Trump administration may have planned for the region.
As a candidate, Trump made China and trade regular talking points. He vowed, among other things, to scrap the TPP, list China as a currency manipulator and slap an eye-popping 45 percent tariff on imported Chinese goods.
The TPP deal was all-but-dead by Monday, but the other threats still stand — and that is what’s bothering Beijing.
“It could be counted as good news for China that the pressure of TPP is now gone,” said Tu Xinquan, an trade expert at Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics. “However, there is great uncertainty as to whether China stands to benefit.”
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Monday’s announcement was the end of a long, slow death for a trade deal that in some ways defined the Obama administration’s thwarted vision for renewed U. S. engagement in Asia-Pacific.
The agreement aimed to reduce trade barriers and tariffs across 12 countries incorporating nearly 40 percent of the global economy, including Japan, Australia, Singapore and Vietnam, but excluding China.
It also included provisions that would compel countries to comply with rules on labor and intellectual property rights, potentially spurring domestic economic reforms in countries like Vietnam.
The Obama administration pitched it as a way to spur U. S. growth by opening Asian markets and exercising U. S. leadership. Critics, including supporters of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, called it a threat to U.
