Let me join first!
Are you afraid of defaulting?
This week, the CPTPP, the world’s highest standard trade organization, held a meeting in Vancouver and agreed to establish a working group to review Costa Rica’s application to join CPTPP. This means that the door to the alliance is open for Costa Rica.
It’s been just over two years since the application to join in August 2022.
While our country applied to join at the same time as the UK in 2021, the UK joined the alliance last July.
Has our country’s application to join CPTPP also established a relevant working group? The spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that China’s position is consistently clear, firmly advocating for trade liberalization and facilitation, actively participating in Asia-Pacific regional cooperation and economic integration. Actively aligning with international high-standard economic and trade rules, actively expanding autonomous opening up, and promoting the process of joining CPTPP, we are maintaining contact, communication, and consultation with all parties on this matter.
After saying so much, it’s actually just one sentence: no progress.
This is the fourth year, the fifth time the application has been rejected for discussion.
Zhu Ziqing commented, ‘The excitement is theirs, I have nothing.’
There are more than a dozen countries in the alliance, including Vietnam, which is also in the socialist camp, which joined the first batch in 2018, while our country was still criticizing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) picked up by Japan after Trump withdrew, saying it was neither comprehensive nor progressive, and no countries were interested.
Also, a Shandong blogger believes that the Belt and Road Initiative should be used to replace it!
This shows that CPTPP is not anti-communist, but anti-China. In other words, as long as conditions such as the public disclosure of officials’ property and independent trade unions are met, there is still a chance.
This is also the premise of our country’s efforts.
Vietnam’s process of joining CPTPP was relatively smooth, and the government revised and added a series of laws to meet the requirements of CPTPP.
No wonder Vietnam’s economy has developed so well in the past two years.
Even war-torn Ukraine applied to join in 2023.
But our country is under a lot of pressure.
- Independent trade unions, decoupled from the government.
- No subsidies or tax incentives for state-owned enterprises, and fair competition between state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and private enterprises.
- Foreign-funded enterprise servers can remain in the country.
- Public disclosure of civil servants’ property.
- A stable and transparent political system…
These standards are all very fatal and may shake the foundation of the country:
Our country’s actions to join the alliance have been very frequent recently:
Showing goodwill to Japan, the group leader:
- Unilateral visa-free for Japan.
- Removing buoys near the Diaoyu Islands.
- The suspension of seafood imports caused by nuclear wastewater will also be resumed soon.
Showing goodwill to Australia, the second-largest group leader:
- The duration of unilateral visa-free stays has been increased from half a month to one month.
However, since CPTPP adopts the principle of unanimous consent of all members, it is useless to have only the consent of the group leaders and deputy group leaders, so other member countries Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United Kingdom must also agree. And as the number of members increases, the number of countries our country needs to deal with will also increase, and the difficulty will increase.
No wonder it’s so urgent. This year, the Ministry of Commerce alone held two press conferences, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came out to speak again yesterday.
In addition, trade policies are also being revised:
- On November 15, 2024, the export tax rebate rate for refined oil, photovoltaic, batteries, and some non-metallic mineral products will be reduced from 13% to 9%.
Other areas of control are also gradually opening up:
- The day before yesterday, the two offices announced that the telecommunications, internet, and cultural fields will orderly expand opening up 《Two Offices Announce: The Internet Orderly Expands Opening Up!》
- Yesterday, the “Pilot Work Plan for Expanding Opening Up in the Field of Wholly Foreign-Owned Hospitals” was announced, and the medical field orderly expands opening up. Pilot cities are allowed to establish wholly foreign-owned hospitals, and hospitals are allowed to hire foreign physicians, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan physicians, and Hong Kong and Macao other health professional technicians for short-term practice, and the proportion of Chinese (mainland) personnel in the overall hospital management and health professional technicians shall not be less than 50%.
- On September 8, the printing industry of publications, which is sensitive to foreign investment, was opened up, and the restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing industry were “cleared”.
- At the beginning of this year, the share ratio restrictions were removed, and foreign capital can hold 100% of the shares of banking and insurance institutions, achieving full control.
Of course, these should have been opened up before 2016, after all, it was promised when joining the WTO.
Of course, the reason why there is CPTPP is also because some people believe that our country does not fulfill its WTO commitments, so they have started a new stove and formed a new group.
In this regard, I firmly do not admit it.
But that’s the situation.
Therefore, CPTPP does not adopt a commitment system, but a compliance system, for fear that you will not keep your word.
Moreover, it is reviewed every year, and if it does not meet the standards, it will be kicked out of the group, for fear that someone will play tricks and take expediency, turning CPTPP into the next WTO.
How could that be?
In 1944, Mao Zedong told the visiting US delegation in Yan’an: “The goal of struggle is to overthrow the dictatorial Kuomintang reactionaries and establish a US-style MZ (democracy) system.”
How upright and righteous!
In fact, we have established a more advanced system.
They believed it then, why don’t they believe it this time?
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