Everyone But China?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not yet fully alive: the agreement has been signed but still needs to be ratified by the governments of its signatory nations. Nonetheless, the corporatocracy’s unborn baby is growing at a startling rate.
Last week, the agreement boasted a grand total of 12 signatories (the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore) with a combined population of 800 million people. This week that number rose to 13 after Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo told U. S. President Barack Obama that the country he represents also wants a piece of the action.
‘Indonesia is an open economy and with a population of 250 million, we are the largest economy in Southeast Asia. Indonesia intends to join the TPP,’ Widodo said on Monday after meeting Obama in the White House.
If Indonesia does sign the agreement, it will bring the combined population of the TPP-bloc to over one billion people, not far off the population of the country the trade agreement was originally devised to encircle and corral – i.e., China (pop: 1.357 billion). The TPP bloc will also represent over 40% of the global economy.
Everyone But China?
The basic proposition behind TPP is disarmingly simple: either China joins or it will be isolated. This isolation would progress: first from its own back yard through the TPP and the Pentagon’s ‘Asian Pivot,’ then from the West (through the TTIP and TISA), and ultimately from the rest of the global economy.
This post was published at Wolf Street on October 28, 2015.
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