U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's announcement to quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement has disappointed many trade experts and foreign policy heads – both within the U.S. and in the remaining 11-TPP member countries. As the U.S. is expected to withdraw from TPP talks, China is pushing for its own regional trade pact. Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state – the chief architect of the U.S.-Indian civil nuclear agreement and also the chief negotiator on Iran's nuclear program, and currently a Harvard University professor – had voiced his skepticism over the TPP's passage with Trump's election victory.Burns made this prediction during a discussion on Trump's Asia policy at the Asia Society in New York even before the president-elect had officially announced the TPP's demise. Burns had told this correspondent, in reply to a question, that Trump appeared "deadly serious" about stopping the TPP."On this issue, he appears to be deadly serious and he appears to believe fervently that the TPP is against American national interests. I think that the present version [of the TPP] is dead and the best we can hope for is some kind of renegotiation among the 12 [member] countries," Burns said, adding that quitting the TPP is a "great mistake, but I think that he is going to carry it through, this great mistake."Burns had cautioned that if the U.S. pulls away from free trade agreements like the TPP and its leading role in the "liberal global order," the U.S. "will have lost, for a generation, the strategic advantage to China."Sen. John McCain of Arizona was equally opposed to the idea of quitting the TPP, saying that the decision to withdraw from the TPP will give China an opening "to rewrite the economic rules of the road at the expense of American workers."Similar sentiments were voiced by others who were not happy about the TPP's demise, saying that the move would deny the advantages which the pact would have brought to the U.S. industry and trade - the 12 TPP member states together account for 40 percent of the global economy - besides being the backbone of the much-publicized U.S. "pivot" to Asia.The TPP states, besides the USA, include Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru.China is, apparently, having the last laugh over Trump quashing the TPP, as it will now rush to fill in the vacuum created after Washington's withdrawal from the pact.Indeed, trade pundits predict that China will aggressively push for its own mega trade deal called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), involving the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.If China can galvanize momentum for the RCEP's successful finalization, it can establish its ascendancy in Asia through this regional leadership role, and play a crucial role in strengthening the Asia-Pacific trade architecture. Not surprisingly, Chinese President Xi Jinping, encouraged by the TPP's demise, used the recent Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru, to garner support for the RCEP.Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a strong TPP proponent, who made a stopover in New York to meet President-elect Trump, was disappointed to hear of the TPP's demise. Japan's Kyodo News reported that Japan, a staunch U.S. ally, would now turn toward RCEP."There's no doubt that there would be a pivot to the RCEP if the TPP doesn't go forward," Abe was quoted as saying.Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, a staunch TPP supporter, is now telling Asian-Pacific nations to strengthen trade by backing the RCEP and other initiatives.Vietnam and Malaysia, also TPP signatories, have already sounded that they were now concentrating on the RCEP, according to their trade ministers.Attention is, meanwhile, turning to the week-long RCEP trade talks to be held near Jakarta, Indonesia from Dec. 2. China, not the U.S., will hog the limelight at these talks. An important topic will be the harmonization of existing trade agreements across much of Asia; the 16 potential member countries of the RCEP account for some 30 percent of the global economy and some 50 percent of the world's population.Though the RCEP is often described as a "poor cousin" of the TPP - the RCEP's standards are far lower than those of the TPP, particularly, on issues such as the intellectual property rights, tariffs, environmental protection, workers' rights, et cetera - it offers hope to Asian countries with a voracious appetite for trade.A U.S. foreign policy analyst, speaking to Daily Sabah on the condition of anonymity, described the TPP as "more than a trade deal ... it was supposed to push the pivot to Asia and had a strong strategic component, aimed at curbing China's growing assertiveness."The RCEP will bolster China's role as a geopolitical leader and will eventually make China the region's undisputed economic driver.RCEP's successful conclusion could result in an erosion of some U.S. business in Japan. White House economists estimate that 35 American industries with annual exports of $5.3 billion to Japan, for example, would lose ground to Chinese competitors if RCEP becomes a reality and the TPP is not revived.The TPP would cut or reduce some 18,000 tariffs for its 12 member states; the China-led RCEP is less ambitious on reducing tariffs. The tariffs of RCEP countries have already fallen by four-fifths in the past two decades due to the World Trade Organization and other agreements, and now average just 3.1 percent, according to trade-weighted estimates from the World Bank.China is the largest trading partner for most of the participants, a distinction it achieved with South Korea in 2003, Japan in 2005, India in 2008 and the ASEAN countries in 2009.