Here are two things that New Zealand, Vietnam, Peru, Japan and the US have in common. First, they all hope to join a nascent trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the biggest game in free-trade town since the collapse of the Doha round of World Trade Organisation talks. Second, none of them is China.
The two are very much linked. No one will say it out loud, but the unstated aim of the TPP is to create a “high level” trade agreement that excludes the world’s second-biggest economy. The 12 countries now hoping to join – which also include Canada, Mexico, Chile, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Australia – make up 40 per cent of global output and about a third of world trade. That’s a big club to be barred to Chinese entry.
There are two motives at work. The first is to wind back time to before China’s accession to the WTO in 2001. Many politicia