1/6 Interesting. When the US pulled out in 2017 the idea of China joining was floated. I'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://twitter.com/BonnieGlaser/status/1329811360679686145

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  (and others in this special ed)

2 - Corning (2018) https://bit.ly/2IUsZWw 

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

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's goal of making them 'stronger and bigger'.

5/6 For further reading, the best thing I've seen on this recently is a 2020 WTR article by Matsushita and Lim: https://bit.ly/35Nxz1h . 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's TPP aspirations.