Throughout the years of arcane and secretive talks that culminated in this week’s Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, participants have brushed aside the notion that the TPP was designed to exclude China. This was not, its advocates protested loudly, an “anyone but China club”. Perhaps too loudly.

本周缔结的《跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》（Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement，简称TPP）是几年晦涩和神秘谈判的结晶，参与者在谈判期间都矢口否认TPP意在把中国挡在门外。该协定的倡导者响亮地抗议道，这不是“除中国外谁都可以加入的俱乐部”。也许太响亮了一些。

Those assertions strained credulity. When their guard slipped, the TPP’s cheerleaders often spoke of the new pact not in terms of economics but of geopolitics. The TPP in its realpolitik guise was the economic complement to Washington’s military pivot to Asia, a means of binding the US more closely to its Asian allies in the face of a resurgent China. In a much-discussed recent paper for the Council on Foreign Relations, Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis wrote that the TPP should be seen as part of “grand strategy” to push back against China’s rise. By signing preferential trade deals with allies, Washington could help stop China from freeriding on the international trading system and counter what they called Beijing’s “geoeconomic power”. Even this week, Barack Obama, the US president who has pinned much hope on the TPP’s

这种断言让人难以相信。TPP的倡导者在放松警惕的时候，往往从地缘政治（而非经济学）的角度来谈论这项新协定。从现实政治上说，TPP是对美国在军事上重返亚洲战略的经济补充，是美国与亚洲盟友面对不断崛起的中国更紧密团结起来的一种手段。美国外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)最近发表的一篇论文受到热议，作者罗伯特•布莱克威尔(Robert Blackwill)和阿什利•特利斯(Ashley Tellis)写道，TPP应当被视为反制中国崛起的“大战略”的一部分。通过与盟友签署特惠贸易协定，华盛顿方面可能帮助阻止中国搭国际贸易体系的便车，反制他们所称的北京的“地缘经济实力”。即使在本周，殷切希望TPP为自己的政治遗产增色的巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)也忍不住讥讽北京。“我们不能让中国这样的国家起草全球经济规则，”美国总统表示。

legacy-burnishing effects, could not resist a dig at Beijing. “We can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy,” he said.

既然各方已就TPP框架达成一致（即便尚未由各国立法机构批准），各成员国应当兑现有关这个俱乐部并不禁止中国加入的承诺。他们应该邀请北京方面成为会员。中国则应该打出更漂亮的牌。它应该开启入会谈判，让TPP成员国下不了台。

Now that the TPP framework has been agreed, if not yet ratified, member states should make good on their word that their club is not barred to Chinese entry. They should invite Beijing to join. China should go one better still. It should call everyone’s bluff by starting negotiations to do just that.

这个构想并不像听起来那么怪异。从北京方面的视角看，有充分理由加入TPP。没错，TPP与其说是一项贸易协定，不如说是旨在保护投资和实现法规标准化、清除境内贸易壁垒的努力，缺陷实在不少。它在加强企业影响力方面做过了头，允许企业起诉被指侵蚀其利润的主权国家。同样没错的是，TPP包含似乎专门针对中国的制约国家行使经济权力的条款。即便如此，TPP的目标同中国所期盼的经济转型的目标大致相符。上世纪90年代末，时任总理朱镕基领导了中国上一波大规模经济改革，以中国2001年加入世界贸易组织(WTO)为契机，推动国内变革。如今TPP有望发挥类似作用。

The idea is not as outlandish as it sounds. From Beijing’s perspective, there are good reasons to be inside the TPP tent. True, the TPP — less of a trade pact and more of a behind-the-borders exercise in protecting investments and standardising regulations — has faults aplenty. It goes too far in strengthening corporate clout by allowing companies to sue sovereign powers accused of eroding their profits. True, too, the TPP contains provisions against state exercise of economic power that seem almost designed with China in mind. Even so, the aims of the TPP and those of China’s hoped-for economic transformation are roughly aligned. In the late 1990s, Zhu Rongji, then premier, led China’s last great economic overhaul by using its 2001 accession to the World Trade Organisation to push domestic change. Today the TPP could play a similar role.

以TPP禁止国有企业获得优惠待遇为例。中国达不到这条标准，其庞大的国企获得从廉价信贷到廉价电力的各种优待。然而，北京方面已明确表示希望结束这种做法，希望迫使大多效率低下的国企在更具商业性的基础上运营。同样，TPP对知识产权（涵盖商标、版权和专利等中国企业不当一回事的领域）作出了严格规定。然而，中国领导人明白这一点也必须改变。随着中国企业——其中一些在研发上大举投入——向价值链上方移动，北京方面将希望保护他们的创新，而不是鼓励对知识产权采取随随便便的态度。

Take the TPP’s prohibition of preferential treatment of state-owned enterprises. China falls short of that standard, supplying its behemoth SOEs with everything from cheap credit to cheap electricity. Yet Beijing has explicitly said it wants to stop such practices by forcing its mostly inefficient SOEs to operate on a more commercial basis. Similarly, the TPP has strict provisions on intellectual property covering trademarks, copyrights and patents, all areas flouted by Chinese companies. Yet China’s leaders know this has to change too. As their own companies, some of them heavy spenders on research and development, move up the value chain, Beijing will want to protect their innovations rather than encourage a promiscuous attitude towards intellectual property.

TPP还有环保规定，以阻止各国通过糟蹋自己的生态系统来吸引投资。同样，中国也在小心翼翼地朝这个方向迈步，清理工业化早期阶段留下的环境烂摊子。在劳工问题上，中国国内的改革议程和TPP规定也是合拍的。中国希望看到更大一部分产出流入工人们的口袋，让他们有更多钱可以花。当然，北京方面将对出现真正独立的工会抱有戒心，但从国家的经济利益出发，它也许至少能够在口头上支持集体谈判的想法。这样，TPP可能对中国有利，重启其停滞不前的经济转型，从国家主导的制造业转向私营部门主导的服务业。但是，中国有可能被允许加入吗？门槛可能不像看起来那么高。越南这样的国家现在是TPP成员国。越南是一个一党制国家，国企受到娇宠，对知识产权的态度就像中国一样满不在乎。如果河内可以加入，北京肯定也能达标。

The TPP has environmental provisions to prevent countries from attracting investments through trashing their own ecosystem. Again, China is moving gingerly in this direction as it seeks to clean up the environmental wreckage its early-stage industrialisation has caused. On labour issues too, China’s domestic reform agenda and TPP provisions are in sync. China wants to see a higher proportion of output in the pockets of its workers, who would then have more money to spend. Certainly, Beijing would be wary of unleashing genuinely independent trade unions. But it may at least be able to pay lip service to the idea of collective bargaining in the country’s own economic interests. The TPP might be good for China, then, by kick-starting its stalled economic transformation from state-led manufacturing to private-led services. But could it possibly be allowed to join? The hurdles may not be as high as they seem. Other countries, such as Vietnam, are TPP members. Vietnam is a one-party state with coddled SOEs and an attitude towards intellectual property every bit as cavalier as China’s. If Hanoi can join, surely Beijing can make the grade as well.

日本首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)一直是最公开把TPP设想成一个地缘政治组织的人士之一。然而本周他似乎向中国入会打开大门，称如果中国加入，TPP将有更加“重大的战略意义”。安倍说得对。没有中国的TPP看起来像是一种变相的遏制战略。如果中国登上这艘船，它可能有助于北京进入后世贸组织的世界。到了那时，TPP可能开始真正变成一项前瞻性的贸易协定，就像其倡导者一直假装它是的那样。

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has been one of the most explicit in envisioning the TPP as a geopolitical organisation. Yet this week he appeared to open the door to Chinese membership, saying the TPP would have more “significant strategic meaning if China joined”. Mr Abe is right. Without China, the TPP looks like a containment strategy in disguise. With China on board, it could help ease Beijing into a post-WTO world. The TPP might then begin to resemble the forward-looking trade pact its advocates pretend it always was.