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Korea applied to join CPTPP after China’s efforts

South Korea will begin registration procedures to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the country’s finance minister said on Monday, the country’s finance minister said on Monday. when China joined the regional trade agreement assuaged Seoul’s concerns about offending its biggest trading partner.

Hong Nam-ki said on Monday that South Korea “can no longer discuss this matter only within ministries because of recent positive changes in the economic order in the Asia-Pacific region.” , such as China and Taiwan’s application to join the CPTPP”.

Earlier, Kwon Chil-seung, South Korea’s minister in charge of small and medium-sized enterprises, told the Financial Times that concerns within the government about joining the CPTPP have been resolved, paving the way for the country to apply. use.

“The Ministry of SME and the Ministry of Agriculture have been relatively cautious, but the decision has been made within the government meeting on joining the CPTPP,” he said.

South Korea’s Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo told the FT that the country’s relative success in fighting the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted its importance to global supply chains.

“We never stop working, we never stop working – Korean businesses have established themselves as reliable manufacturers and partners,” he said.

The CPTPP has been signed in 2018 is the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement negotiated by former US president Barack Obama and designed to limit Beijing’s growing economic and political influence in the region. area.

Donald Trump withdraw The United States from the 2017 pact. The TPP evolved into the CPTPP, which was signed the following year but did not include the United States.

South Korea has been hesitant about joining either accord, in part to avoid damaging relations with Beijing.

Ministers have also been reluctant to agitate key constituencies in the country before a presidential election March. Koreans working in the agriculture, fishery and SME sectors have expressed opposition to the agreement because of concerns about increasing foreign competition.

China itself registration CPTPP in September, a day after the US, UK and Australia announced a new military partnership aimed at countering Beijing’s military assertiveness in the region. Taiwan registration CPTPP less than a week later.

Cheong Inkyo, a trade expert at Inha University, said: “The process seems to have stalled as the government does not want to take the risk of opening up the market further and the presidential election is only three days away. another month”.

“But its sense of urgency has grown as China and several other countries have submitted applications.”

A senior diplomat from a country that is a member of the CPTPP added: “The applications of China and Taiwan have changed the dynamics.”

According to the 2019 policy brief published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think tank, South Korea will collect $86 billion a year from membership.

Choi Byung-il, a former Korean trade negotiator and professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said: “Korea cannot continue to watch the trade diversion to other countries and be excluded from global supply chain.

One potential obstacle for South Korea is its difficult relationship with Japan.

Countries are drawn into a Disputes at the World Trade Organization bypassed export controls Tokyo imposed on South Korean semiconductor components in 2019 amid Japan’s battle over Japan’s wartime occupation of Korea.

“There will probably be mixed feelings in Japan about any South Korean application to join the CPTPP,” a Japanese official told the Financial Times.

South Korea’s decision to join the agreement follows a broader shift towards multilateral trade agreements, to which the country has traditionally opted out. Seoul in approval process The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a separate regional agreement led by China, includes 15 Asian countries.

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