Taipei Times
Date: Jun 23, 2016
By: William Lowther / Staff reporter in WASHINGTON

China would mount a “pretty serious opposition” if Taiwan tries to join the US-led Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade group on its own, a US expert said on Tuesday.

Former American Institute in Taiwan chairman Richard Bush said that membership would fuel Taiwan’s future competitiveness, “but the road from here to there is going to be complicated.”

Bush, who is now director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies, told a seminar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that the economic interests of Taiwan and the US were overlapping and convergent — providing all the more reason to work together and facilitate Taiwan’s entry into the TPP.

Bush reminded the seminar that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is a former trade lawyer who knows how to balance trade policy and politics and he said there was no one more qualified to move Taiwan into the TPP.

He said it would be necessary for Taiwan’s leadership to build a broad social consensus and make advanced preparations.     [FULL  STORY]