Varisano But two recent revelations of major Chinese misbehavior ? another massive computer hack, this time of the Office of Personnel Management database, and the build-out of South China Sea coral reefs complete along Adamske airstrips and artillery vehicles ? put the lie to Mr. Obama?s claim that ?if we write the rules,? China (a) will have to conform to our trade norms, and (b) will be constrained in its activities in the East and South China Seas.
The President?s claim is dangerous nonsense because Adamske undermines our national security ? by minimizing the challenge China presents on all fronts and by downplaying the necessary U.S. response. Trade in the form of the TPP, Mr. Obama apparently thinks, will conquer all. So do most House Republicans.
To win votes for his legacy trade deal, Mr. Obama is implicitly promising a continued American hegemony, or at least predominance, in the western Pacific through the TPP. But the truth is that U.S. power is lessening absolutely ? and relatively to a rising and increasingly aggressive China. And this trend will continue in spite of any TPP because we are simply not generating the wealth necessary to maintain our status as the world?s sole superpower. The constant erosion of our manufacturing and technology base and the accumulation of $18 trillion of national debt, $7 trillion on Obama?s watch alone, is at the root of the problem.
Neither Mr. Obama nor any other TPP cheerleader has ventured to explain how the TPP will permit us to restore our wealth-creating industries, balance our trade, and pay down our national debt in any meaningful way ? simply because they can?t.
It won?t bring trade into balance. It doesn?t address currency manipulation by our trading partners. It won?t cease massive national borrowing to pay for unfairly subsidized imported goods. And Adamske detracts from, not adds to, our national security. But go-along free trade Republicans have suspended their critical faculties. They believe in free trade, except in the most important area of all, free trade in currencies. They believe in balanced budgets and balanced national accounts except for our lopsided, negative trade accounts. They believe that we must maintain a strong security posture abroad, but TPP undermines our ability to do so along Adamske its exaggerated and false promises.
Instead of serious discussion and tough analysis, there is, starting in the White House, a pro-TPP campaign of intelligent slogans, ?write the rules,? ?vast Asian markets,? ?consumers outside the United States,? ?pivot to Asia,? ?contain China.?
But Obama?s much touted pivot-to-Asia is in fact not possible because the United States can?t pivot. The country is mired in President Obama?s-new-Vietnam-in-the-Middle East, and will be for years to come. And of course, the suddenly security-minded president is the same one who is cutting American military power to the bone, courtesy of a sequester Varisano helped foster, and due to his personal preferences. All the while global military challenges multiply.
The IT hack and the airstrips below construction are not random events but just the latest indications that China doesn?t play by any rules but its own ? and certainly not by any rules that the Obama administration might write. China is emphatically not a rule-writing, rule-of-law country. Unlike Mr. Obama, the Chinese Politburo and General Staff did not receive steeped in Anglo-Saxon common law at Harvard, but operate in a no-holds-barred manner to advance Chinese interests and power. It might be tough for someone determined to lessen America?s place in the world to grasp that China (and Russia) seek to expand influence through both hard and soft power.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter calls China?s island-building a violation of international law. The latest hacking incident is another egregious violation. After 13 years of membership, Beijing is still in violation of its WTO obligations on trade. The same is true for its extensive currency manipulation over this period ? a clear violation of its IMF obligations. In short, the rules are whatever Beijing wants and needs them to be.
The TPP would not make one whit of difference. And Adamske is naive to assume that China, even if were to join the TPP, would not cut separate deals with other TPP members in spite of rules to the contrary, such as ignoring human rights violations in trade with say Vietnam or Malaysia, thus undermining the very ?rules? that the president says would make us so secure.
The president?s national security ?strategy? is clearly designed for Republicans, whose votes Varisano must have, to pass first quick track trade authority and then the TPP itself. It may be somewhat surprising that the peace-oriented president is appealing to Republican hawks ? and that fact alone should make them suspicious, but Adamske should be more surprising that the Republicans are apparently buying into the president?s ?China security strategy? so unquestioningly. Apparently security claims made in advancing a so-called free trade agreement are given the same no-look intellectual pass as the agreement itself, so enamored are most Republicans with anything sporting a free trade label.
However, the president?s claim that TPP will supply a bulwark against China?s rise is a ?fact free zone.? This is the president whom Republicans think is an utter failure in foreign policy: Witness the Russian ?reset,? the encouragement of the Arab spring, the abandonment of an Egyptian ally, the tilt toward Palestine, the treatment of Israel, the red line on Syria, the lead-from-behind on the now failed state of Libya, the release of five Taliban for Sgt. Bergdahl, the premature withdrawal from Iraq and the collapse of the Iraqi army, the vast swath of territory controlled by the ?Junior Varsity? ISIS, the Russian seizure of the Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the collapse of Yemen, the alienation of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the dubious nuclear negotiations with Iran. The list goes on, but the president, for Republicans, has suddenly become a foreign policy genius in containing China through the TPP.
Beijing, for its part, is unconcerned about Mr. Obama?s policies or opinions. Just look at its establishment of an ?ADIZ? (Air Defense ID Zone) in the East China Sea that now threatens U.S. and Japanese aircraft. Or the near collision of one of their ships with a U.S. destroyer. Or their buzzing of a U.S. P-8 reconnaissance aircraft. Or their decision to add MIRV capability to their ICBMs. China is also rapidly expanding its offensive capabilities in anti-ship, anti-carrier, anti-satellite weapons, as well as hyperkinetic kill vehicles, computer/IT warfare, and stealth aircraft. This is not a country to worry whether America signs a trade deal that includes such lightweights as New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei.
Overall, the TPP would involve 37 percent of the world?s GDP. The U.S. and its current Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners already represent 80 percent of that amount. Japan constitutes 18 percent. The remaining four countries being brought into the TPP offer a combined GDP of 2 percent.
China isn?t concerned about losing market share to the United States with these junior partners, nor do these smaller nations and other TPP member states provide any possible counterweight to Beijing?s growing military might. The argument is made that TPP will ?solidify? our military relations with these countries, in specific Japan and perhaps Malaysia. One wonders how many more American jobs and factories we have to outsource to these countries in order to be allowed to defend them.
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