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New Zealand gov't rejects TPP "China containment": trade minister

Xinhua, June 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser on Tuesday moved to dispel concerns that the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations are intended to exclude China from regional trade.

Referring to "the very sensitive matter of U.S. and Chinese leadership in the early 21st century in international economic matters," Groser said the New Zealand government rejected completely the proposition that the TPP was some type of "China containment" strategy.

Groser was speaking to a New Zealand-U.S. partnership forum as the 12-nation talks enter the home straight.

Groser said Tuesday that the New Zealand trade model was "open regionalism" and that "at least one Australian Trade Minister and I have said in public, neither Australia nor New Zealand would be part of TPP if it became a 'China containment' strategy."

"Indeed, we absolutely do not exclude the longer-term possibility of China becoming party to TPP in some later iteration of TPP or some later evolution of TPP into something we cannot quite envisage today," Groser said in the published speech.

"I have had many discussions of an informal nature with senior Chinese officials on TPP that lead me to the conclusion that while this is not a current possibility, it cannot be excluded."

New Zealand and Australia were also involved in the 16-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade negotiations, which included China and not the United States.

"I leave for an RCEP Trade Ministers' meeting in Kuala Lumpur in a couple of weeks time. It is not as mature as TPP, but is making some progress," said Groser.

Groser said his government shared the concerns of middle New Zealand people and he dismissed activists who have questioned the TPP as "politically irrelevant."

However, he said, nothing was "too big to fail" and he reckoned there was a 70 percent chance of a deal being secured, although failure to secure a quality agreement on New Zealand's most important export, dairy, was still not in sight. Endi