as a "dynamic process - and example of competitive liberalization," and this liberalization described can result in a new type of governance for the Asia-Pacific, as well as transnational trade. According to analyst and economist B.R. Williams, the United States has a large role in the reduction of trade barriers and increased U.S. investment. Williams explains that the U.S. aims to create a "broader platform for trade liberalization, particularly throughout the Asia-Pacific region." Scholars C. Li and J. Whalley explore a numerical approach in explaining the liberalizing effects of the TPP. Li and Whalley uses a quantitative equilibrium simulation to explore the effects of the TPP on the liberalization of trade and new markets. China According to a 2020 study, the TPP pushed China to introduce its own internal liberal market reforms. Reform-minded elites in China used the TPP to justify reform. In anticipation of China's exclusion from the agreement, exposed Chinese firms began investing in production in TPP member states. In May 2020, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that China has a positive and open attitude toward joining the CPTPP. In November 2020, China and fourteen Asia-Pacific nations signed a trade deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Geopolitics TPP would have increased the likelihood that Japan would undertake economic reforms to revive its economy, which coupled with potential South Korean accession to the TPP, could have had an economic impact on China. By making the Chinese economy less competitive and Chinese leadership less likely to write the rules of trade in East and Southeast Asia, the Chinese government would have been under great internal and external pressure to liberalize its economy. Japan's former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, believed that future Chinese accession to the TPP would have a major pacifying impact on the Asia-Pacific region. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said that a failure to ratify the TPP would give China the opportunity to boost its exports and set labor and environmental standards in the fast-growing Asia Pacific region through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). South Korea did not participate in the TPP "largely out of a concern to maintain balance in its economic relations with China and the United States" but showed greater interest in joining after Japan, its biggest economic competitor, decided to participate. The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan also reportedly considered and implemented various domestic reforms to improve their prospects for eventually joining. Since