ABSTRACT
Economic globalization has entered into a ‘GPS’ period, meaning ‘gated’, ‘protectionist’ and ‘slow’. That is to say, major economic powers in the world have set up their own economic camps within which preferential rules are negotiated, causing trade diversions. Protectionism is on the rise and the pace of globalization has largely slowed down. In parallel, multipolarity has become a new trend in international politics. Major power competition is increasing. The TTIP talks have been launched against that background. Once announced in early 2013, the TTIP negotiations immediately attracted the attention of various emerging third parties. Feeling encircled by the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and now the TTIP, China is watching closely every step of the TTIP negotiations and calculating how it should respond. In many ways, China still sees itself as a developing country and therefore shares many common interests with other developing countries, worrying that the TPP and the TTIP would be game changers, without due regard to the interests of developing countries. But China is more than an ordinary developing country. As an emerging great power, China sees the TTIP from a strategic perspective, worrying that the TTIP would serve as a strategic instrument for containing China or curbing the growth of China’s sphere of influence, mainly in Asia-Pacific and the Eurasia continent.
