A closer look by Jagdish N Bhagwati, Senior Fellow for International
Economics at the Columbia University indicates that the TPP is a political tool
against China’s new aggressiveness, built in a spirit of confrontation and
containment, not of cooperation.
It appears that the whole idea of
the TPP was born out of US contempt for the Chinese economic rise in Asia and
in the world. Hence to stem the rise of the most populated nation on earth, the
Americans want the entire Asian block to join them in ‘killing’ China
economically.
The pity is that the US is
dragging the nations in the Southeast Asian region – grouped under the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) – into the grouping to directly
oppose China and this without calculating the dire consequences for these
nations.
Notwithstanding the possibly that
the Asean stand to lose out in their trade deals with Beijing if it were to be
an economic obstacle to China, the grouping risk being targeted by the Chinese
response to the TPP.
According to Professor Jagdish
Bhagwati, the TPP is also here to help America reap huge profits at the expense
of member states. There are doubts that the USA are really pursuing the goal of
economic cooperation in Asia Pacific at all.
As a matter of fact, the TPP may
end up to be yet another one sided free trade agreement rather called a
‘partnership’ in order to dilute the true intentions of the Americans. Under
the banner of a ‘partnership’ with America, the Asean and Asian states are
being duped into believing that the US is offering a helping hand thus invoking
a fake aura of cooperation.
With the hidden agendas behind
the TPP – that of countering China and the faking of cooperation with member
TPP states – the US look set to play a divisive role within the Asean grouping.
It has already been evident that the US is pressing smaller, weaker nations
within the Asean to ‘battle’ China with disputes on territorial issues.
Hilary Clinton’s appearance at
the Cambodia Asean meeting two months ago was clear indication of the divisive
role by the US when she forced the Philippines to create havoc at the end of
the ‘Foreign Affairs’ ministerial summit.
Manilla had pressed the Asean to
include a touchy issue over a rocky shoal disputed by China and the Philippines
into the ‘final declaration’ of the summit which was openly opposed by
Cambodia. It was also opposed ‘secretly’ by other member states of the Asean
but they did not dare express themselves, fearing America’s backlash against
them.
Henceforth, the very presence of
the US at an Asean meeting that was supposed to be a stepping stone to resolve
regional conflicts peacefully ended in a division – the first in its history –
among the member states.
Now, dangling the alluring TPP in
the face of the Asean member states, the US is bound to use the ‘membership’ of
the Asean states that has joined to raise the jealousy of those states that are
still skeptical of the ‘partnership’.
Vietnam and Singapore has been
roped in with the probable assurance that the TPP will be a partnership between
the US and the smaller nations and it will benefit the smaller states in
particular with US massive investments and cooperation.
But then came Canada, Japan and
talks of Australia possibly joining in thus turning the TPP into a one sided
affair. With Canada and Japan in the TPP, the Americans must have said, the scope
of cooperation and growth for the smaller nations was wider than ever before.
But then, do these small states
not already have their own regional body where they are being promised heaven
and earth with economic giants? The Asean has grown into a major trade
organisation in which the member states enjoys direct bilateral and multi-lateral
deals with Japan, India, China, Russia and the US.
And yet, despite the Asean’s
flexibility, the nation states are still struggling with ‘one-sided’ trade
deals with the US for example. The Asean nations have never benefited from
‘technology’ transfer with the Japan or the US while they have been made to be
fearful of direct and open deals with Russia and China, for example.
The fear was surely born from
America’s warnings that the China and Russia’s growth in Asia would be
nefarious to the Asean member states. The Asean has thus contracted the US and
Japan as the nations that will ‘economically’ support them to prevent the
giants of Asia from swallowing them. With these barriers now laid, the
Americans are now pressing harder than ever to get more Asean member states to
join the TPP.
So far the TPP members are as
follows: Brunei, Chile, Singapore, New Zealand (original signatory members) in
June 2005. The US is said to be ‘negotiating’ its entry in the TPP but it is
already the leading member, unofficially speaking. Malaysia, Peru, Mexico,
Canada, Vietnam, Australia, South Korea are the latest states that showed
interest or are currently negotiating to become members of the TPP.
Nevertheless, the US has already
proven in the past that it will divide and rule wherever it sets its sight as
had happened before in South America. Professor Jagdish Baghwati wrote:
American regionalism closer to
home shows the US now trying to promote the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas (FTAA). But its preferred template was to expand the North America
Free Trade Agreement (Canada, Mexico, and the US) to the Andean countries and
include huge doses of non-trade-related issues, which they swallowed.
This was not acceptable to
Brazil, the leading force behind the FTAA, which focuses exclusively on trade
issues. Brazil’s former President Luiz Lula Inácio da Silva, one of the world’s
great trade-union leaders, rejected the inclusion of labor standards in trade
treaties and institutions. The result of US efforts in South America, therefore,
has been to fragment the region into two blocs, and the same is likely to
happen in Asia.
Ever since the US realised that
it had chosen the wrong region to be regional with, it has been trying to win a
seat at the Asian table. The US finally got it with the TPP, simply because
China had become aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South
China Sea, the South China Sea, and vis-à-vis India and Japan.
The warning signs are already
there. It is up to the Asean member states to be weary of the chicken that has
not yet laid its eggs!
Amir Ali
Business & Investment Opportunities
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