An ambitious Asia-Pacific trade pact linking the United States and 11 countries, including Australia, lays in tatters after US President-elect Donald Trump said he would kill the deal on his first day in office on January 20.
Trump's statement appears to open the way for China to assume the US' leadership mantle on trade and diplomacy in Asia.
The Republican termed the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) "a potential disaster for our country".
China, Japan and South Korea are already in the initial stages of discussing a trilateral trade deal, and Beijing has been pushing its own limited Asian regional trade pact that excludes Washington for the past five years.
Japan and Australia, Washington's closest allies in Asia, pledged after Trump's announcement to push ahead without the US, although removing the largest market for goods and services would shrink it dramatically.
"Pushing them forward is the idea that, if they don't act, it will look like China's very weak trade deals are the only game in town," said Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on Asian economies and trade.
Trump has pledged to redraw trade deals to win back American jobs, and has threatened Mexico and China with punitive tariffs in a move that some economists have warned could spark a trade war that threatens to roll back decades of liberalization.
Ending the TPP was a key election pledge of Trump's and was also the policy of his Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton. The deal died in Congress after Trump's November 8 election victory.
The TPP, a signature diplomatic initiative of Democrat President Barack Obama, was intended to lower tariff barriers in countries that accounted for 40 per cent of the world economy, as well as providing a bulwark against China.
A major trade deal between the US and Europe is also now close to collapse after Britain's plans to withdraw from the European Union prompted Washington to demand better terms and opposition in France and Germany has also all but scuppered it.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said "the TPP would be meaningless without the United States," even as parliament continued debating ratification and his government vowed to lobby other members to approve it.
"It (the pact) just continues in a state of not being in effect," said Shinpei Sasaki of the Cabinet Office's TPP headquarters.
Australian Trade Minister Steven Ciobo told reporters in Canberra that countries could push ahead with the TPP without the US by amending the agreement and possibly adding new members.
"We could look at, for example, if China or Indonesia or another country wanted to join, saying, 'Yes', we open the door for them signing up to the agreement as well.'"
But Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said reopening negotiations would not be easy. "If you sign a fresh agreement, you have to go through it again. We haven't crossed that bridge yet. We'll cross it if and when we come to that."
China has pushed its own Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which notably excludes the US. It is a more traditional trade agreement, involving cutting tariffs rather than opening up economies and setting labour and environmental standards as TPP would.
The RCEP was a focus of attention at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Peru over the weekend.
Tan Jian, a senior member of China's delegation at the summit, said more countries are now seeking to join its 16-member bloc, including Peru and Chile, and current members want to reach a deal as soon as possible to counter rising protectionism.
China's foreign ministry on Tuesday said Beijing has an "open attitude" toward any arrangements that promote free trade in the region as long they don't become "fragmented and politicized".
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the RCEP was an initiative led by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which China has been promoting. "We are willing to keep pushing the (RCEP) talks process with all sides to achieve positive progress at an early date," he said.
Vietnam last week shelved its own ratification of TPP, after Obama abandoned efforts to push it through a lame-duck Congress, while Malaysia has shifted its attention to the RCEP.
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