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All Aboard the Post-TPP World
By Pepe Escobar
November 25, 2016
"Information
Clearing House"
- "SCF"
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A half-hearted near handshake between US
President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir
Putin before and after they spoke
«for about four minutes», standing up, on the
sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
summit in Lima, Peru, captured to perfection the
melancholic dwindling of the Obama era.
A whirlwind flashback of the fractious
relationship between Obama and «existential threats»
Russia and China would include everything from the
Washington-sponsored Maidan in Kiev to Obama’s «Assad
must go» in Syria, with special mentions to the oil
price war, sanctions, the raid on the ruble, extreme
demonization of Putin and all things Russian,
provocations in the South China Sea – all down to a
finishing flourish; the death of the much vaunted
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty, which was
reconfirmed at APEC right after the election of Donald
Trump.
It was almost too painful to watch Obama
defending his not exactly spectacular legacy at his
final international press conference – with, ironically,
the backdrop of the South American Pacific coast - just
as Chinese President Xi Jinping all but basked in his
reiterated geopolitical glow, which he already shares
with Putin. As for Trump, though invisible in Lima, he
was everywhere.
The ritual burial, in Peru’s Pacific
waters, of the «NATO on trade» arm of the pivot to Asia
(first announced in October 2011 by Hillary Clinton)
thus offered Xi the perfect platform to plug the merits
of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP),
amply supported by China.
RCEP is an ambitious idea aiming at
becoming the world’s biggest free trade agreement; 46%
of global population, with a combined GDP of $17
trillion, and 40% of world trade. RCEP includes the 10
ASEAN nations plus China, Japan, South Korea, India,
Australia and New Zealand.
The RCEP idea was born four years ago at
an ASEAN summit in Cambodia – and has been through nine
rounds of negotiations so far. Curiously, the initial
idea came from Japan - as a mechanism to combine the
plethora of bilateral deals ASEAN has struck with its
partners. But now China is in the lead.
RCEP is also the fulcrum of the Free
Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) – a concept that
was introduced at an APEC meeting in Beijing by, who
else, China, with the aim of seducing nations whose top
trade partner is China away from entertaining TPP
notions.
RCEP – and even FTAAP – are not about a
new set of ultra-comprehensive trade rules (concocted by
US multinationals), but the extension of existing deals
to ASEAN and key nations in Northeast Asia, South Asia
and Oceania.
It didn’t take experienced weathermen to
see which way the Pacific winds are now blowing. Peru
and Chile are now on board to join RCEP. And Japan –
which was negotiating TPP until the very last breath –
has now steered the drive towards RCEP.
The Sultan gets into the action
Meanwhile, Putin and Xi met once again –
with Putin revealing he’s going to China next spring to
deepen Russian involvement in the New Silk Roads, a.k.a.
One Belt, One Road (OBOR). The ultimate objective is to
merge the Chinese-led OBOR with the development of the
Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EEU).
That’s the spirit behind 25
intergovernmental agreements in economy,
investment
and nuclear industry signed by Russian Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in St.
Petersburg in early November, as well as the set up of a
joint Russia-China Venture Fund.
In parallel, almost out of blue, and with
a single stroke, Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan, on the
way back from a visit to Pakistan and Uzbekistan,
confirmed what had been all but evident for the past few
months; «Why shouldn't Turkey be in the Shanghai Five? I
said this to Mr. Putin, to (Kazakh President)
Nazarbayev, to those who are in the Shanghai Five now… I
think if Turkey were to join the Shanghai Five, it will
enable it to act with much greater ease».
This bombshell of course refers to the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which started
in 2001 as the Shanghai Five – China, Russia and three
Central Asia nations, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan (Uzbekistan joined later) - as a security
bloc to fight Salafi-jhadism and drug trafficking from
Afghanistan.
Over the years, the SCO has evolved much
further - into an Asia integration/cooperation
mechanism. India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and
Mongolia are observers, with India and Pakistan to be
admitted as full members arguably by 2017, followed by
Iran. Turkey (since 2013) and Belarus are SCO «dialogue
partners».
Wily Erdogan made his SCO opening in
conjunction to stressing Turkey did not need to join the
EU «at all costs». That’s been more than evident since
Erdogan survived the July coup and unleashed a hardcore
crackdown that’s been met with horror by Brussels –
where the 11-year (so far) negotiations for Turkish
accession are all but stalled. And France, the number
two EU power after Germany, will inevitably block it
further on down the road, whoever is elected President
next year.
Turkey joining the SCO, in the long run,
alongside Iran, India and Pakistan, would represent yet
another key node of Eurasia integration, as the SCO is
progressively interlocked with OBOR, EEU, China’s Silk
Road Fund, the Asian Infrastructure
Investment
Bank (AIIB) and even the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB),
which will start financing projects for group members
and then expand to other nations in the Global South.
Moscow and Beijing would welcome Ankara with open arms.
Whatever the contours of Trump’s
China/Asia foreign policy, Eurasian integration will
proceed unabated. China is advancing its own
simultaneously internal and external pivot, involving
the tweaking of financial, fiscal and tax policies to
drive consumption in retail, health, travel and sports
in parallel to the OBOR drive all across Eurasia, all
the way to solidifying an economic superpower.
TPP – or NATO on trade, the Asian version
- is just a scalp in a long and winding road. And on the
South China Sea, dialogue is slowly edging out the
confrontation fomented throughout the Obama
administration.
At APEC, Xi also met with Philippines
President Rodrigo Duterte – and called for China and the
Philippines to go for maritime cooperation. A practical
result is that Philippine fishermen will continue to
have access to Scarborough Shoal, the fertile fishing
ground inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone
(EEZ) that has been under Chinese control since 2012.
Beijing also pledged assistance to Philippine fishermen
in alternative industries - such as aquaculture.
Call it the Trans-South China Sea
Partnership.
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