CPTPP Labor Standards And China's Response

The emergence of labor standards provisions in international trade and economic treaties is the result of two major waves that began to sweep across the globe in the1990 s.One being the global economic integration wave,especially after the establishment of the WTO,which led to the large-scale participation of developing countries in the global production process.Since the treatment of labor and labor costs in developing countries are generally lower than those in developed countries,a large number of manufacturing companies have shifted their production capacity to developing countries,and the market for products from developing countries has also expanded rapidly.Another being a wave of labor rights protection.In 1998,the International Labor Organization(ILO)adopted the “ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work”,which formally defined four basic labor rights in the international scope.In the face of the increasing scale of exports from developing countries,developed countries put forward the theory of "social dumping",which is "an act of exporting products produced under extremely poor forced labor standards,mainly for the exports of developing countries." According to this theory,developed countries intend to curb dumping by treating exports from countries with lower labor standards than theirs.However,the proposal to include labor standards and social dumping in the WTO framework was resisted by a large number of developing countries,and the multilateral system eventually failed to reach agreement on the issue.However,with the wave of labor rights protection and the rise of regional trade systems,developed countries finally succeeded in incorporating labor standards provisions into free trade agreements,pioneered by the United States,and the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA),which entered into force in 1994,was the first free trade agreement to provide for labor standards.The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP),which entered into force in December 30 2018,has new provisions on labor standards and is one of the free trade agreements with the highest level of labor standards protection.China has submitted a written letter of China's formal application for CPTPP membership on September 16,2021,and has expressed its willingness to work to fully meet the standards of CPTPP rules.This thesis mainly studies the form and content of the labor standard provisions in CPTPP,the interface between China's labor protection legal system and CPTPP and China's response methods,with the aim of exploring how China's labor protection system connects with the ILO core labor standards and how to meet the labor standard provisions of CPTPP,and ultimately contribute to China's negotiation of trade agreements by proposing labor standards with Chinese characteristics that are in line with national conditions and world trends.