> You won't agree with any of that, though, and I don't care. This is for the rest of the readers.
I agree with this. ;)
I do hope that other readers get a chance to read in depth about this topic, not just on Hacker News but also journalistic outlets and primary sources.
> You admit to the realpolitik of the TPP and you admit to how it is try to sabotage China's self-governance
international governance.
I'm going to kind to you and ignore the implication that I am part of some conspiracy and I'm going to ignore your attempt to argue for single issue voting, and that 'this issue' is somehow more important than say, current challenges to nuclear nonproliferation. After this your post posits or implies two things:
a.) The United States is being unusually or unsystematically aggressive in its pursuits of trade deal provisions.
b.) That I have not provided any reasons or evidence that the TPP is an important strategic piece for the United States.
Together the implication of (a) and (b) is that the TPP is nothing more than a sabotage plan. But this wholey dismisses the context - the context I've worked (and you've ignored) to include within the top parent and some children.
So let's tackle these points head on, yes?
a.) The ideal situation, writ large to global politics, would be for China and the US to broker an inclusive trade deal - in fact a global one - that reaches a consensus not just among the world powers, but also any nation or person that would like to participate. Such an idyllic trade deal would benefit everyone, make everyone better off, and would be garnished by the approval of everyone. Such a trade deal, while a good ideal goalpost, is not realistic - try getting two people to agree on something, much less 8 billion. The unavoidable truth is that instead of people, representatives meet, and instead of all countries, only some meet.
The United States and China, the two largest economies and leading world powers, have not been able to find a mutual trade agreement. Both, instead (and here China first), have opted to create competing trade blocs. If the American bloc does better and wins out, China will be forced to join it and adopt its rules. If the Chinese bloc wins out, it is America that will be forced to join the other and play by its rules. In either scenario, the laws of the trade bloc - by your implication - sabotage the self-governance of the other. That is, because the US and China can not agree to mutually run a trade bloc, it would be China sabotaging US self-governance. The President of the United States said as much during his state of the union address.
Basically - I agree with you that it's unfortunate to be in a position of competition rather than collaboration - where one bloc or the other will win and write the rules for the other. What I am saying is that it isn't singular and unique aggression on the part of US policy - both great powers have been forced to compete in this way because they have not been able to cooperate. The solution here, of course, would be to scratch both the TPP and TTIP and create a joint treaty. Since that's not going to happen, it's difficult to advise the US to just lay down and accept the terms in TTIP.
b.) No, included quite a bit on this front, although perhaps I haven't been clear?
Reasons for a US pivot to Asia:
- Europe is in a vice grip. Financially backed primarily through traded credit/debit, the European financial system has a credit to currency ratio of approximately 70:1. Much of the global crisis was inevitable and continues to be so. Southern Europe is facing fifty percent unemployment of youth. Austerity is a divisive policy tensioning historical cultural disagreements. The Middle East on Europe's borders had grown unhappy with the hegemonic order imposed on it first by the Ottomans and then by the European politics of the great wars and then by the neocolonial order imposed on it during the 20th century. Europe's bit to continue its credit backed financial system by expanding its sphere of influence into the Baltics has stirred the rumblings of a consistently xenophobic nuclear nation state - an effort led, of all nations, by Germany.
That is to say that America's historical partner region is flummoxed in a web of conflict and represents a short-term stalled and long-term uncertain future.
- The United States itself, having found a niche this century in providing security for global oil markets (why Japan, Saudi Arabia and Europe are all close allies), would like to move away from this business in the future as green (and nuclear) technologies and 21st century politics make oil security a less certain long term prospects. Similar agreements to fix an order in Europe with US military backed NATO are seeing both political and technological changes as US air superiority is being challenged by both the development of hypersonic missile delivery systems, new software backed radar grids, a cybermilitary space that has enabled a new form of asymmetsic warfare, and the general maturing of other country military capabilities in comparison with the US. Ballistic missile shields then being deployed by the US, it's only defense against hypersonic rockets, also neutralize country's own nuclear deterrents - namely the technology available to the United States do not represent a viable politically tenable solution.
- The financial trappings of the European system have see the US enter into a period where is has taken on the burden of collecting and issuing debt with trading partners. The collection of too much of this debt - and the issuing of too much of it - is a serious prospect that both complicates international relations and afixes leverage between the partnered nations.
- Capitalism's adoption of a purely inflationary currency in the 70s has opened the door to both international currency manipulation and to a new necessitated finance sector. With the new inflationary currency, growth has to always exceed inflation, or liquid wealth is lost. To keep this system out of recession financial instruments (and those who control them) must keep the savings rate strictly above this inflationary rate. The growth that can be used to back savings is in limited supply (why there was such a run on mortgage backed securities) and usually provided by bonds to the Western governments we've already discussed as being in straits.
- The Asia-Pacific region, as covered by the top parent comment, is universally recognized as being the region of the world with growth in the coming decades. Going further it is surmised by the State Department that this region will decide world affairs in the coming decades. Indeed, Sino-Russian relations (as they were during the Cold War) are intimately important to world affair. As Europe and Russia enter an era of noncooperation, China and the Asian region is Russia's go to trading partner and network. In fact these past two years have seen Russia deliberately move to China, who now represents the majority of its economic trade. Many of the nations in the Asia Pacific region are quickly becoming world powers in their own right.
- Relatively stable and seeing an interest in trade from the rest of the world, the region is recognized by the United States as the stage that determines the order of the world during the first half of the 21st century. The US wants to participate in the growth, the trade and the decisive world politics of the region; and Asia furthermore represents a stable, peaceful option for its continued prosperity - a hedge against the pressure cooker represented by Europe.
This is not something I've made up, or something from a PR spreadsheet. It is 21st Century US foreign policy. The US has committed itself to a "pivot to asia". The TPP is like moving a pawn into the center of the world chess board. It is not an aggressive move - at least not an overly aggressive one - but it represents a stake. The US recognizes that the prospects of Europe are violent and unstable ones. It wants stable and peaceful options.
Are you broadly against the US wanting to participate in the Pacific, or are you just against the TPP?
> It almost seems like you think that ANY treaty in Asia would be a good thing. Any US influence at all.
I think that's a silly suggestion. Regarding the TPP versus 'any old treaty' - mostly it because of timing and the partner regions. See above context under (a) for more information.
> And you agree with all the criticisms, and they just don't matter to you.
No, they matter to me a lot. If you go through my account history (I post on xnull#guest where # is in {1,2,3,4,5,6} and also xnull) you will see that we agree on a great many things and you will see that I am very critical of certain portions of the leaked documents.
Unfortunately it is difficult this day and age of panic politics to have more informed conversation ranging broad and narrow vantagepoints. Either way, I hope I at can at least get some readers to do independent research regarding the options in front of the United States and global trends.