New Silk Road vs TPP: China Needs Independent, Strong Southeast Asia
© AFP 2016/ WANG ZHAO
18:08 04.02.2016(updated 18:09 04.02.2016) Get short URL
Unlike
Washington, which is seeking to exert its influence on Southeast Asia, Beijing
needs strong and independent collaborators in the region, Bangkok-based
geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci writes.
© AP PHOTO/ EBRAHIM NOROOZI
Washington is pushing ahead with itsTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)initiative
aimed at curtailing China's "One Belt, One Road"
project; the TPP proponents say the initiative would open doors to free
trade, economic development and prosperity for Asian nations. However,
there's no such thing as a free lunch, as an old American proverb
says.
The US-led TPP comes with lots of strings
attached, Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci warns.
While
Washington is trying to seduce Southeast Asian countries into joining
TPP and abandoning Beijing's New Silk Road project, one should realize "that physical
infrastructure built beyond China's borders becomes a long-term asset
for those who cooperate in its construction, while Western 'free
trade' is in all reality, submission to foreign economic
hegemony," the analyst points out in his article for New Eastern Outlook.
Remarkably, Hunter Marston, a Washington DC-based
political analyst who focuses on Southeast Asia, wrote in his op-ed for The
Diplomat in July 2015 that those nations who want to join TPP should
"get [their] house in order" and carry out "significant
financial and social reforms."
To meet TPP requirements, Southeast Asian nations
would have to eliminate high tariffs aimed at reducing foreign
competition.
"Phasing
out high tariffs will expose domestic industries to increased
competition from overseas," Marston admitted, asserting, however,
that, eventually, fundamental political and economic reforms would bolster the development
of TPP's Asian participants.
© PHOTO: DMITRY ASTAKHOV / ITAR TASS
"The nations of Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia,
and Vietnam have more to gain from membership in this
progressive trade deal than from abstaining and stalling modern social and
economic reforms," the Washington DC-based political analyst elaborated.
Tony Cartalucci does not share such an optimistic
stance, citing Iraq's modern-day history. Following the 2003 US invasion
of Iraq, Western financiers predicted the continuous and rapid economic
growth of the "liberated" country.
"A shock program of economic reforms signals
a radical departure for Iraq. The changes, announced by the country's
provisional rulers at the annual World Bank/IMF jamboree in Dubai,
could see its battered economy transformed abruptly into a virtual
free-trade zone," The Economist wrote in September 2003.
However, these positive forecasts never came true.
"Iraq is a
perfect modern day example of a nation overrun by brute force and
made to concede to an entire restructuring of its economy, giving
foreign powers not only access to their natural resources, markets, and
population, but uncontested domination over them as well,"
Cartalucci underscores, claiming that "it is something Washington
seeks to repeat elsewhere, including Southeast Asia."
In contrast, China needs independent sovereign
neighbors to do business with.
© AP PHOTO/ JOHN MOORE
Make no mistake, the geopolitical analyst stresses,
Washington sees any rising power as a threat that must be either
controlled or destroyed.
Indeed, Washington's famous Wolfowitz Doctrine reads: "Our
first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival, either
on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere… This is a
dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and
requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power
from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated
control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include
Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and
Southwest Asia."
Cartalucci remarks that although Asia is watching
China's rise with caution, it has become clear that China's neighboring
states prefer cooperation with Beijing to the "client regime
status" proposed by Washington.
"[Asia]
seeks a multipolar region where all nations rise together and a balance
of power and a respect for national sovereignty is maintained. That
is a balance, collaboration with the West simply will not yield," the
Bangkok-based analyst concludes.
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