President Obama plays the 'China Card'. Is he correct in asserting the U.S.

[cali]

can "write the rules on trade"?

<snip>

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president and head of the Communist Party, is making a parallel pitch — but rooted in a very different strategy for gaining global influence. Mr. Xi has essentially shrugged off the question of whether his nation, the world’s second-largest economy, will join the pact. Instead, he has picked off American allies like Britain, Germany and South Korea to join, against the administration’s wishes, the Asian Infrastructure Investment bank, a project started by China in part to keep its own state-owned firms busy building roads, dams and power plants around Asia.

<snip>

America’s strategy since the 1990s, when Bill Clinton wooed Republican votes to get China into the World Trade Organization, has been a straightforward one: Entice China into institutions that operate according to Western standards of trade rules, labor practices and the protection of intellectual property, gradually changing the way a rising power rises. Mr. Clinton made that case in visits to Beijing, arguing that if China opened its doors to trade, new ideas and the internet would inevitably pressure its leaders toward democracy and freer expression.

It was a view that, in retrospect, overestimated American influence and underestimated the degree to which the Chinese believed they could amend the global order to suit their own economic interests. So while Mr. Obama plays the China card to sell the accord in the United States, the Chinese are pursuing their own course.

China has been excluded from the negotiations on the trade deal because it has been unwilling to sign on, so far, to the wide-ranging reforms of its economy required of all members. It could join later on — and Chinese officials have left open that possibility, as have nations like South Korea. But for now, China seems in no rush. Just as it created an infrastructure bank to suit its own ambitions, it is assembling trade agreements whose rules it can write by virtue of the huge size of its market.

<snip>

“The Chinese government knows the TPP is a major attempt by the U.S. to win back economic leadership in the region,” Mr. Shi said. “China also knows the Asia Pacific region is such a wide region, so you can have two stages. One is led by the U.S., which is pushing the TPP. The other is dominated by China.”

Mr. Shi said China was not worried about the TPP because Asia was a vast enough region to allow for multiple trade agreements. “This is far from a zero-sum game,” he said. “In the future, both countries will find places of cooperation as well as competition.”

<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/us/politics/as-obama-plays-china-card-on-trade-chinese-pursue-their-own-deals.html?_r=0

[malaise]

1. As I said this is all about China

Interesting read

[cali]

2. I think it's far more that China is being used as a pretext, a boogeyman

by the President to shove the tpp down our throats.

[jakeXT]

7. Maybe it's more about China than trade, that's what I was getting from reading

a report from the oldest German Social Democratic foundation



http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/global/11114.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ebert_Foundation

[malaise]

14. Precisely n/t

[MaggieD]

22. Chinese are smarter than many "democrats"....

... It seems. Easier just to call Obama a liar and be done with it. Thinking things through is hard.

[Yorktown]

3. I think Obama is 100% correct on the TPP

Creating big areas of prosperous free trade is one powerful and peaceful way to entice China and Russia out of their autistic, militaristic nationalist mindset.

[TM99]

4. And what about the US?

Who is going to peacefully and powerfully entice us out of our militaristic & nationalistic mindset?

We spend three times as much as China and seven times as much as Russia in on our military budget.

Some reports show that we spend more than all of the other top 9 beneath us combined.

This is a bullshit reason and is not why the TPP is being proposed.

[cali]

6. +1. thanks for making those important points.

[Yorktown]

8. Yes, I thought of that objection when typing my previous post

But I think my initial post still makes a valid point.

First, the TPP does create an enticement for China to lurk out of its nationalistic wood.

Second, China and Russia's military budgets are undervalued because of the difference in purchasing power. Subcontractors paid from the Pentagon's budget will cost (twice?) the same subcontracting in China.

Last, some of the US military budget comes from being the only global cop on the beat. When Boko Haram abducts hundreds of girls, who does Nigeria asks drones help to?

This having been said, not having fought the Iraq invasion would have done wonders to avoid bloating the military budgets. Thanks, GW.

[cali]

11. please post some evidence to support this claim:

"the TPP does create an enticement for China to lurk out of its nationalistic wood."

The article posted, largely refutes it- with facts.

And provide links and evidence that the imbalance of U.S. military spending is because China's and Russia's "undervalued" military budgets.

Oh, and the bloated military budget is not solely because of the Iraq War. Our military budget has long been bloated.

Regarding your example of how we sent drones to Nigeria, that's such a tiny piece of the budget that it's astonishing to see that claim. And it brings up questions about the U.S. unilaterally deciding to play the role of global cop.

You make declarations with exactly zero evidence. Claims with zero evidence are worth... zero.

[Yorktown]

16. Kindly do not call my arguments worth zero upfront

I was unaware it was requested to automatically provide back up data for any assertion.
I made some assertions which I believe are correct based on my general knowledge.
Below some back up data as requested:

1- "the TPP does create an enticement for China to lurk out of its nationalistic wood."

This would request a compilation of data far too great. I am simply making the relatively intuitive satement that large trade blocs have traditionally enticed independent nations around to trade with them. That holds ture of the large historical free trade zones I mentioned earlier: Roman Empire, Caliphate, Imperial China. I did not make the clai it repelled third parties intent on waging war. If China wants to attack the US, the TPP won't be a deterrent.

2- undervaluation of China's military. Articles all over the place. One here:

Various government and independent calculations for the PLA's expenditures for 2003 - the most recent year for which a significant number of institutions published estimates - ranged from $30.6 billion to $141 billion based on official exchange rates or purchasing power parity (PPP) models. China's declared military budget in 2003 was $22.3 billion at official exchange rates. In 2003 IISS estimated Chinese PPP-based military spending at about $85 billion, while SIPRI's PPP estimate was $140 billion. In 2003 the official budget was RMB 185.3 billion, which was $22.4 billion at current exchange rates. In 2010 IISS estimated Chinese PPP-based military spending at about $114 billion, or 1.88% of GDP. By 2010 the official budget had increased to RMB 532.1 billion, or $77.9 billion at official exchange rates. In Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2010 the US Defense Department estimated that actual Chinese military spending was double this about, over $150 billion on an official exchange rate (OER) basis.

3- impact of the insane Iraq invasion on bringing US military budgets upwards:

[cali]

5. Please elaborate on:

1) the relevance of Russia to the TPP

2) evidence of China's "autistic, militaristic, national mindset". (has it not dawned on you that the U.S., going by the evidence, has a very militaristic, nationalist mindset?

Did you even read the freakin' article, which lays out in detail that China's power within their sphere of influence (and beyond) cannot be contained by a trade agreement? Did you know that China already has a trade agreement in the region including such nations as Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines?

Why do you think the President is correct on the TPP? Have you read the leaked LATE draft chapters; Environment, IP and Investment? Have you read the leaked process documents? Have you read analysis? Are you familiar with the criticism by experts of enforcement provisions. Is your agreement because you trust him? What else could it be?

[Yorktown]

10. Some answers

2- evidence of China's "autistic, militaristic, national mindset" is that China is in protracted conflict with nearly all its maritime neighbors. And China builds on contested islands. And China enforced an air "bubble" out of all international treaties where it requests all aircraft to report to it. That kind of assertion of might can very easily degenerate.



1- evidence in the case of Russia is Crimea + the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

3- "China's power within their sphere of influence (and beyond) cannot be contained by a trade agreement" is a sentence I contest. It takes a carrot and a stick to make a stubborn donkey move. The Chinese generals can be moved by carrots despite what the article says.

4- I think Obama is correct for two reasons of track record: that of large properous free trade zones in the past (Roman Empire, Caliphate, China) and because he has a rather good track record of steering the economy and international relations.

[cali]

13. compared to our military interventions, that's some weak sauce.

I didn't ask about Russia. I asked what Russia had to do with the TPP. You didn't respond. In fact you avoided most of my questions.

China is forging strong relationships with countries in its sphere of influence. You seem to believe that isn't true and that all their relationships with their neighbors is rooted in intimidation.

You neglected to post actual evidence. You neglected to address my points or the points in the NYT piece.

[Yorktown]

19. You ask too many questions too fast

So please avoid saying I do not answer before giving me time to do so.

I already supplied some other info you requested in my post #16

As for this set of questions:

• Russia: same as China, the notion of a carrot. But it's a longer stretch because of Putin.

• China and regional relationships: you see only half the story. Yes, bilateral between China and its neighbors have vastly expanded. But they all are very wary of the militarism of China's generals. It's on public record in the cases of Japan (islands), Korea (airspace), Taiwan (self explanatory) and VietNam (islands). Recently, Indonesia got angry over building activity on contested islands, but decided against upsetting the mercantile apple cart. But Indonesia isn't pleased.

All these points on China's regional relationships is on public record and can be found in a few clicks. You can check.

[HereSince1628]

21. It may be about China, but maybe not about territorial claims

China's international trade has reached a point where having Yuan as reserve for trading is increasingly important.

Making money in international markets depends on exploiting asymmetries. Our trading partners must buy our exports with relatively more expensive to use US currency. Being the nation that produces the reserve currency has long given US financiers an advantage. They have relatively easy access to currency that is in short supply among our trading partners. The downside is the dollar's strength which is problematic for US manufacturers in the export market. Overseas customers needing to pay in USD are at financial disadvantage in purchasing our manufactured goods, and this contributes to trade deficits.

China's trade activity has pushed the importance of the Yuan to a status that produces a recognizable threat to the use of the USD as the dominant reserve currency. That not only threatens the status quo, it threatens at least marginally higher costs for the US financial sector...aka lower profitability.

The American financial sector HATES lower profitability, which even if it is tiny per dollar is enormous when summed across trillions of dollars being traded. And when we look at who controls American politics, and thereby -all- our policies, it's the financiers NOT the manufacturers or laborers. Financiers want the USD to remain the global reserve currency, and our policy is shifting to contain China, imo, not because China makes claims on rocky almost submerged islands with nearby oil reserves distant from its shores, but because of Chinese monetary policy and a dominant Yuan threaten the American financial sector.

[MaggieD]

9. Obama is dead on right about China

[cali]

12. Declarative statements without any supporting evidence are as worthless as a scrap

of used toilet paper. carry on.

[MaggieD]

15. He's still correct on that point

The issue has been beaten to death. No point in wasting time on more long involved posts. You just ignore them.

[cali]

17. Declarative statements without any supporting evidence are as worthless

as a scrap of used toilet paper.

You NEVER post evidence for your claims.

excuses and evasion are all you ever offer up. You've been proven wrong on so many of your hollow claims, it's laughable.

Currency manipulation is addressed in the tpp, insists Maggie- over and over again after being proved wrong.

You shouldn't be taken seriously in this discussion because of that ridiculous op alone- but that's hardly the whole of your claims.

Bye bye.

[MaggieD]

18. So is it secret or not secret?

You seem to want to have it both ways.

You're pissed that the U.S. wants to bend it to our will or you're pissed they haven't or you're pissed they even tried? Which?

You don't think China will write the rules if we don't, or you don't think we need to care if they do? Which?

[Adrahil]

20. Cali... C'mon.... That's kinda gross.

And people make statements of opinion like that here all the time, including you. There's no need to go literally in the toilet.