1/6 Interesting. When the US pulled out in 2017 the idea of China joining was floated. I& #39;d just written a thesis on the SOE chapter (17), and felt sufficiently skeptical to write a short op-ed about why China was unlikely to join at that time: https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/02/11/why-china-wont-save-the-tpp/">https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/02/1... https://twitter.com/BonnieGlaser/status/1329811360679686145">https://twitter.com/BonnieGla...

2/6 During and after negotiations, a lot of people argued that the SOE disciplines (and other aspects of the TPP) were were written with China in mind. See, eg,

1 - Bhala (2017) https://bit.ly/33405dA ">https://bit.ly/33405dA&q... (and others in this special ed)

2 - Corning (2018) https://bit.ly/2IUsZWw ">https://bit.ly/2IUsZWw&q...

3/6 This contributed to the idea that the TPP was an instrument for & #39;containing& #39; or & #39;encircling& #39; China. For a recent Chinese perspective reflecting that logic, see Wang (2019) https://bit.ly/3pHfeei ">https://bit.ly/3pHfeei&q...

4/6 Implementing rules on non-commercial assistance (art 17.6), regulatory bias (art 17.4), transparency (art 17.10) etc would pose real challenges. Signing up would help progress reforms in the sector, but could equally complicate Xi& #39;s goal of making them & #39;stronger and bigger& #39;.

5/6 For further reading, the best thing I& #39;ve seen on this recently is a 2020 WTR article by Matsushita and Lim: https://bit.ly/35Nxz1h .">https://bit.ly/35Nxz1h&q... Worth noting that they think the idea of China accepting SOE disciplines at this stage is "far-fetched"!

6/6 That said, there are other aspects of TPP that would create complications too - provisions on IP, enviro and labor protections, even exchange rate policy (although NB). Should be interesting to see if this goes anywhere, and how it might interact with Biden& #39;s TPP aspirations.