Asia is seeing growing rivalries—and also the enduring influence of the US. In the post-war years it was perhaps easy to take for granted the deep and vast sway held by the US in Asia—from its significant role in the Asian Development Bank to its closeness to regional powerhouse Japan. China’s recent rise has reconfigured the terms of politics, economics and trade in Asia—and the world. That has informed the US’s much-discussed ‘pivot’ to Asia, a key plank of which has been the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Are China’s prospects in trade and regional influence hampered because it is not a signatory of the TPP?