Does China win if Donald Trump pulls out of TPP trade deal?

Does China win if Donald Trump pulls out of TPP trade deal?

There were no audible cheers from the Chinese leadership compound in central Beijing, but beyond the stern-faced security guards there must surely be some quiet celebrations going on.

The announcement that Donald Trump is to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is happy news here in the People's Republic.

It's not a massive surprise. It had become increasingly clear that whichever candidate won, TPP was no more, but now we know for sure.

Chinese officials had made no secret of their dislike for it - they saw the trade deal as an attempt at containment, as part of the Obama administration's pivot to Asia, and a regional framework that would have excluded them.

"The TPP is in fact not about boosting free trade," Xinhua, the state news agency said on Saturday.


"It is the economic arm of the Obama administration's geopolitical strategy to make sure that Washington rules supreme in the region."

Trump: TPP 'a potential disaster' for America

That's probably going too far, but there were reasons for China to be wary.

In a speech last year, US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said that passing TPP was "as important to me as another aircraft carrier".

So naturally China will be content to see it never leave port.

There is another reason for Beijing to be cheerful, too.

The US withdrawal from the initiative could undermine the confidence of its already somewhat unsettled regional allies.

Trans-Pacific Partnership: What is it that Trump does not like?

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, warned explicitly about this in September, and about the damage that failing to follow through with TPP could do to America's standing as an Asia Pacific power.

"We can't just stand up and say to the world, 'Hey, we're a Pacific power,'" he warned.

"We have to show it in our actions and in our choices."

He added: "If we reject TPP, we take a giant step backward.

"We take a step away from this vital platform for cooperation, we take a step away from our leadership in the Asia Pacific, we take a step away from the protection of our interests and the promotion of universal values.

"Consider what my old colleague, Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said recently.

"Quote, 'If TPP fails, American leadership in the Asia Pacific may very well fail with it.'"

Other senior figures have cautioned that the US pullback, and any perception that Mr Trump's "America First" policy will mean a turning inwards and away from global engagement, will leave a gap that China would be only too pleased to step into.

"We like the US being in the region," New Zealand's prime minister John Key said, "but if the US is not there that void needs to be filled, and it will be filled by China."

Image: Activists protest against TPP in Washington DC

Indeed, China's President Xi Jinping is already pushing his own alternative regional trade deals - one of which includes the United States, while the other does not.

At an Asia-Pacific summit over the weekend, he positioned himself as an advocate for free trade, declaring: "China will not shut the door to the outside world, but will open it even wider."

So this is a good day for China's leadership, but it's not an all-out party just yet.

While the end of a trade deal they hated is welcome news, there remains real uncertainty about what Mr Trump will do in office, and what that might mean for the global economy, any further slowdown of which will have significant consequences here.

As the weekend, Xinhua commentary concluded: "The billionaire-turned-politician needs to prove that derailing the global economy has not been one of the reasons why he ran for US President."