Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), known as the ‘economic’ NATO Agreement dominated by the United States, will impose profound influence on the politics, economy, society and intellectual property system in China. There are deep-seated reasons why the US are extremely active to make TPP signed and why China is ruled out in the course of the negotiations. Since China has entered into the WTO, the domestic and international market is closely related, and TPP must have significant impact on China’s international market. With regard to the influence, China shall take efficient measures to cope with, including: dealing with issues appropriately regarding its economic sovereignty, based on its own situations, promoting of negotiations on free trade agreement, keeping on improving the hard and soft power in intellectual property, fully taking advantages of “the Belt and Road Strategy” and exploring new market; and getting ready for constant adaptation to TPP rules and the like.

“The rise of China” is a critical issue of the twenty-first century’s world politics. China is leading the new bipolar system in the post-Cold War period with the US. As the American dominance in East Asia became weaker, the old containment could not be fully implemented anymore. As a result, a new comprehensive strategic initiative covering the whole Pacific coastal States is being adopted. The outcome of this transformation is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was reached on October 5, 2015. This article aims to analyze the newly arisen TPP as a post-Cold War strategic alliance of East Asia. The TPP is a mega regional trade agreement. Its predictable legal setting is thus indispensable for the peaceful coordination of competition between both sides. The TPP could be a firm ground for the stability of this region, sharing the vision of cooperation, not confrontation in the future.

Intra-industry trade (IIT) has played an important role in international trade of Vietnam as a result of rapid growth of the country. This article investigates the level of IIT between Vietnam and 11 trading partners in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) over the period 2000- 2014. Although there have been a large number of empirical researches contributed to the determinants of IIT, most of them only pay attention on developed countries where the trade flows are similar due to similar demand structure and production technology. Until now, there is no study on intra-industry trade between Vietnam and countries in TPP that Vietnam recently signed a trade agreement in early 2016. IIT is measured by the Grubel–Lloyd index. The index shows that the extent of intra-industry trade between Vietnam and the trading countries is not high due to the level of economic development and the market size. The determinants of IIT are examined using a panel regression model. In the empirical analysis, the results indicate that Vietnam’s intra-industry trade is positively correlated with country size, while it is negatively correlated with income dissimilarity, the trade openness, and geographical distance. This study contributes to the new theoretical trade theory on the evidence of developing country’s IIT.