TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan should look forward to joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) before China due to its reliability and to its significant contribution to the semiconductor sector, a senior economist said Saturday (April 1).

As the 11-member group has given the United Kingdom the green light to join, observers expect Taiwan could be next. Taipei filed its membership application in Sept. 2021, less than a week after China, causing concern that Beijing might try to interfere and block Taiwan’s access.

The fact that an advanced economy like the U.K. needed a rigorous review process lasting two years before being accepted, should be a positive sign for Taiwan, according to Yen Huai-shing (顏慧欣), senior deputy executive director of the Taiwan World Trade Organization (WTO) and RTA Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER).

She said that as Taiwan’s contributions to stable supply chains and to the semiconductor sector were significant, there was a strong chance that the country would be allowed to join ahead of China. Yen added that Taiwan’s promises of legislation and execution were consistent, inspiring reliability, CNA reported.

In contrast to Taiwan, China’s actions after joining the WTO were somewhat different from its promises, causing some credibility problems, Yen said. China's high level of control over state-run enterprises was also a factor which might slow down its bid to join CPTPP, amid other measures seeming to go in the opposite direction from market liberalization.