Can China Proactively Accept Labor Provisions of the CPTPP: Some Lessons and Experience from Vietnam’s Labor Law Reform

China has formally applied to join the CPTPP. It is a realistic issue to comprehensively assess the possible impact of CPTPP labor provisions on China and explore effective countermeasures and measures. Vietnam, as the only socialist country among CPTPP member states, has revised its domestic labor law internally to build a dual labor union system, concluded FTAs externally and fought for a transitional period in the form of signing side letters to fulfill its obligations under the CPTPP, which has certain reference value for China. In recent years, the economic and trade agreements signed by China have adopted a more open attitude towards labor rules, and the current domestic laws have basically implemented the ILO’s requirements on core labor standards at the level of textual provisions, but there is still a certain gap between the concrete implementation and the substantive requirements of the CPTPP labor rules at the level of dispute settlement. In particular, influenced by the “aggressive interpretation” of labor obligations in the dispute settlement panel report of the EU-Korea labor case, the binding dispute settlement mechanism of the CPTPP may raise the requirements of labor obligations, and China should make thorough and comprehensive risk assessment and preparation for this, and actively participate in a multi-level and differentiated plan based on China’s actual needs, partial freezing and continuous follow-up.