Here’s how China keeps the US at bay in Asia
What hides the free trade agreement between 15 countries of the Asia-Pacific area wanted by China. The article by Tino Oldani for Italy Today
Xi Jinping's China is increasingly proving to be the main driver of global geopolitical change. This is confirmed by the great free trade agreement, just signed by videoconference, between 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific area, an agreement that is worth 30 per cent of world GDP and involves around 3 billion people. Numbers that make this agreement the largest commercial agreement in the world. On a strategic level, it is a knockout blow inflicted by Xi Jinping on the United States of Donald Trump, which in the last four years has pursued a protectionist policy towards China and the rest of the world, including Europe, by imposing tariffs. in the name of the motto "America first". The blow inflicted on the US is made even more evident when one considers that even two of its historical allies in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, have signed the agreement with China, of which Japan has been considered an adversary for centuries.
The rapidity with which Beijing has reversed the commercial scenario of the Asia-Pacific area is impressive. Four years ago, as soon as he was elected, Donald Trump announced that his first decision would be the cancellation of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade treaty promoted by Barack Obama, which involved 12 countries facing the Pacific Ocean, with the exclusion of China. Led by the United States, that deal was worth about 40% of the world economy and included Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The TPP was signed in February 2016, but not yet ratified by all acceding countries in November, when Trump was elected. Its cancellation in early 2017 opened a highway for Beijing diplomacy, which in less than four years has succeeded in supplanting the US as the leading country in trade and economic relations for the entire Asia-Pacific region.
The agreement, called the Regional Comprehesive Economic Partnership (Rcep), based in Hanoi as Vietnam is the rotating president of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), associates the ten countries of Southeast Asia (Brunei , Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), plus China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. India, despite having participated in the negotiations, has not yet joined them as it fears negative consequences for its trade balance, especially in the relationship with China, but it is not excluded that it may do so in the future.
The 20 chapters of the agreement dictate new rules that go far beyond the abolition of trade tariffs, and concern strategic sectors, such as: investments, e-commerce, public procurement, intellectual property and agriculture. Tariffs are abolished at 90% and not at 100% to protect some protectionist policies of individual countries in certain sectors, primarily agriculture.
In essence, the political message of this agreement is a rejection of Trump's protectionism, which has caused quite a few turbulence in trade in the Asia-Pacific area, to which a highly innovative free trade policy is opposed, from which China will be in all likelihood the largest beneficiary. This is confirmed by the enthusiastic comment of Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang: "The signing of the RCEP is not only an epochal milestone in East Asian cooperation, but it is also a victory for multilateralism and free trade".
Words with an almost mocking flavor, if we consider that this hymn to commercial liberalism comes from a communist prime minister, and sounds like a severe criticism of a country like the US, considered a bulwark of freedom even in the economic field.
That the agreement of the 15 countries represents a challenge to the US, they say it openly in Beijing: the tabloid Global Times , considered a voice of the Communist Party, tweeted that the RCEP represents "a blow to the protectionism and economic bullying of the United States, and it will help the Asia-Pacific region take global leadership in the post-Covid-19 recovery and reduce US hegemony in the region ”.
Getting back on top in Asia will not be easy for the US. The confirmation of an anti-China policy was the only common point of view between Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the campaign for the White House. An identity of views probably more apparent than real. It should not be forgotten, in fact, that Biden is a long-time politician, with 47 years of politics behind him, and had a leading role, when he was a deputy, in convincing the US Congress to open the doors of the WTO to China. the world trade organization. A key passage for the Chinese economy, which materialized in the 2000s, favoring its rapid take-off, after centuries of isolation and poverty.
Thanks to that role and the subsequent appointment as deputy of Barack Obama, Biden enjoyed privileged relations with the leaders of the Communist Party, the army and the Chinese secret services. Relations that, according to Trump supporters, would have served his son Hunter to combine personal business with Chinese companies linked to the Communist Party. Accusations remained without consequences, typical of a tough election campaign, full of low blows.
The fact remains that four years ago the US sat at the head of the agreement with the Pacific countries, and China was out, while now China is at the head of the table and the US is outside it. And returning to that table will not be easy for the new head of the White House, much less with a leading role, which now appears lost, perhaps no longer recoverable in a world that is changing at great speed, a world where Covid-19 is putting the democracies and their economic response, which is not always sufficient (the disputes in the EU over the rule of law and the Recovery Fund are proof of this), is a severe test, while it does not seem to have affected the iron governance of China.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ecco-come-la-cina-tiene-a-bada-gli-usa-in-asia-sul-commercio/ on Sun, 29 Nov 2020 15:38:24 +0000.