TPP presents three possible scenarios
- By Dan Steinbock
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E-mail China Daily, October 9, 2015
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Another gamesmanship [By Zhai Haijun/China.org.cn] |
The recent Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement presents Asia with good, bad and ugly scenarios.
Had the TPP failed, that would have been a severe blow to the credibility of the United Sates in Asia. And yet, it excludes Asia's largest economies－China, Indonesia and India.
In Washington, the TPP has been praised as a triumph for the Obama administration. However, it still faces a tough battle with a divided Congress, amid presidential primaries, is now opposed by leading Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton－and needs the approval of 11 other TPP members' legislative bodies.
In China, the Ministry of Commerce said China welcomes the TPP agreement and hopes it can facilitate talks on other regional free trade deals to push economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
In 2005, the original TPP among Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore was a vision of an inclusive free trade agreement. Since 2010, Washington has led talks for an expanded, but more exclusive, "high-standard" FTA, which also includes the US and its trade allies Japan, Canada, Australia, and Mexico, plus Peru and Vietnam.
The negotiators hammered a deal with nations that represent very different levels of economic development. The living standards in the US are 10 times higher than those in Vietnam. As a result, talks were conducted under extraordinary secrecy, which left environmental movements, labor unions and cyber security observers angry.
The result is a preferential regional trade agreement dominated by the US dollar. Territorial and maritime friction in East and South China Seas has steadily accelerated in parallel with the US' pivot to Asia. The Pentagon is shifting the bulk of its naval assets to the region by 2020.
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