{"id":5615,"date":"2013-04-19T12:20:08","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T03:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=5615"},"modified":"2013-04-22T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T01:09:08","slug":"tpp-is-politics-by-other-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/tpp-is-politics-by-other-means\/","title":{"rendered":"TPP is politics by other means"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Ambassador_Roos_with_Prime_Minister_Abe_at_the_Joint_Press_Announcement_of_the_Okinawa_Consolidation_Plan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5616\" title=\"U.S. Ambassador to Japan John V. Roos shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Japan, on April 5, 2013.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Ambassador_Roos_with_Prime_Minister_Abe_at_the_Joint_Press_Announcement_of_the_Okinawa_Consolidation_Plan.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Ambassador to Japan John V. Roos shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Japan, on April 5, 2013.\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Ambassador_Roos_with_Prime_Minister_Abe_at_the_Joint_Press_Announcement_of_the_Okinawa_Consolidation_Plan.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Ambassador_Roos_with_Prime_Minister_Abe_at_the_Joint_Press_Announcement_of_the_Okinawa_Consolidation_Plan-205x136.jpg 205w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Ambassador_Roos_with_Prime_Minister_Abe_at_the_Joint_Press_Announcement_of_the_Okinawa_Consolidation_Plan-332x221.jpg 332w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/trade-partnership-competition-tpp-vs-rcep\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark\u2019s explanation<\/a> of what is complex terrain is pithy. Asia has two free trade agreements, one championed by the US at the expense of China (TPP), and one via ASEAN which includes China but not the US (RCEP). He writes that whatever the sense of competition between them, neither will do structural harm to the economic interests of the other. So, we should be intolerant of any attempt at a veto of the respective agreements\u2014no\u00a0state should be allowed to inhibit the trade liberalisation of another.<\/p>\n<p>But I think that while the intended consequence of the TPP is economic, its primary effect is political. Any \u2018veto\u2019 which would be exercised by China may have trade casualties, but it would have a political target. This is an area of politics which will directly affect China\u2019s capacity to pursue core interests of all sorts\u2014because the TPP looks very much like a containment mechanism, particularly now Japan is a part.<\/p>\n<p>If the TPP is seen by China as a containment mechanism, then the partnership\u2019s negative impact on stability in Asia will outweigh the economic benefits we could expect to see. After all, the TPP may help economically, but it is hardly a structural change. And Asia\u2019s economic success is built mainly on several decades of stability\u2014continued stability will be more important for growth than the liberalisation generated through the TPP.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It also doesn\u2019t matter much whether the RCEP materialises or not. This question is about how threatened China feels, and how it may respond as a result. The TPP and RCEP aren\u2019t in competition, because the important element isn\u2019t economics; and the US would hardly feel threatened by the RCEP (although it may feel a certain concern at China\u2019s growing influence).<\/p>\n<p>If the message out of Washington is economic, it should either pursue growth another way, or seriously and fervently seek to include China. If the move is strategic, then Beijing\u2019s suspicion is confirmed, and it is hard to begrudge them any attempt at a veto. Contrary to Mark\u2019s post, it&#8217;s going to be increasingly difficult to find competition that is anything other than bad on the present tack\u2014that is while the world\u2019s two largest economies see success for the other as a loss for themselves.<\/p>\n<p><em>Harry White is an analyst at ASPI.\u00a0Image courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Ambassador_Roos_with_Prime_Minister_Abe_at_the_Joint_Press_Announcement_of_the_Okinawa_Consolidation_Plan.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Wikimedia Commons.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark\u2019s explanation of what is complex terrain is pithy. Asia has two free trade agreements, one championed by the US at the expense of China (TPP), and one via ASEAN which includes China but not &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":5616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>TPP is politics by other means | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/tpp-is-politics-by-other-means\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TPP is politics by other means | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark\u2019s explanation of what is complex terrain is pithy. 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