Rightways: IPEF

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Friday, September 9, 2022

Washington weaponizes Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) even before it takes shape

After a long period of public opinion hype, the first ministerial meeting of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) led by the US and participated by a total of 14 countries is set to be held in Los Angeles from Thursday to Friday. Although officials in Washington claimed that this does not mean participating countries have to pick a side between China and the US, it is just a cover-up to appease people and an insincere statement - in related reports in the US and Western media, "anti-China" frequently appears in news headlines, and some even couldn't wait to tout that the IPEF is "the best way for US to counter China in the Indo-Pacific."

In May this year, US President Joe Biden announced the launch of the IPEF during his visit to Japan. Washington's boast that the IPEF "goes beyond typical trade deals" and will "have an affirmative economic agenda" in the region is just a guise to cover up the IPEF's "innate deficiencies." Its "non-typical" feature is that it does not include tariff relief, market access and other arrangements, which makes it difficult for member states to obtain substantial economic benefits from it; its "innovation" is that it does not require congressional approval, and member states can freely choose to participate in the four pillars. This means the IPEF lacks legal binding force.

More importantly, although the IPEF has been painted with "economic cooperation," its root is the "political framework" to contain China. Washington's real purpose is to create a small circle of supply chains and industrial chains in the Asia-Pacific region that is "decoupled" from China. This obviously harms the vital interests of Asia-Pacific countries, and this is what most countries are worried about and opposed to. At the same time, some member governments have not been able to explain to their citizens the "necessity" of participating in the IPEF. Most of them participated in the negotiation with a skeptical attitude, and some were coaxed by the US.

Washington has designed four "pillars" for the IPEF: trade, labor and digital economy; clean energy and decarbonization; resilience of supply chains; tax and anti-corruption. What is basically certain is that Washington will not offer any concessions to the participating countries. Based on past experience, what Washington will actually do is to ask for more. While inciting other countries to "decouple" from China's industry chain, it also attempts to quietly turn these countries into economic vassals of the US. Countering China has become Washington's open scheme, while creating more economic vassals and geopolitical minions at the same time is its secret plot. This should arouse high vigilance of Asia-Pacific countries.

Coincidentally, the IPEF has a high degree of overlap in terms of the members with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that came into effect earlier this year. Among the 15 member countries of RCEP, 11 countries have participated in the IPEF. Only four countries, including China, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, are not IPEF members. And among IPEF countries, apart from the US, India and Fiji, the remaining 11 countries have all joined the RCEP.

The US wants to use IPEF to hurt the foundation of RCEP and hollow out this regional free trade agreement. However, compared with RCEP, which has solidly promoted regional economic integration, IPEF is just a big empty shell. Each participating country has its own demands for interests, and it is impossible for all of them to follow US orders like Japan.

Most of the participating countries hope to obtain US commitment to open the market through the IPEF negotiation, but Washington is advertising that the IPEF negotiation will bring benefits to US labors, as well- as small and medium-sized enterprises. Washington has shown no interest in bridging the gap between different interest demands.

In addition, the IPEF faces a huge uncertainty - its progress is made only by the president's executive order. When the US government changes, the negotiated agreement may be overturned at any time. It is widely anticipated that once there is a political party rotation and if the Republican Party takes office, relevant content relating to fair trade, digital economy, and clean energy will be revised immediately and substantially. This means that three of the so-called four pillars of the IPEF could collapse overnight.

People still have a fresh memory of the TPP, and many people still use the TPP to benchmark the IPEF. In 2016, Washington pooled a lot of resources to building the TPP to contain China. Now that six years have passed, China and the international community, including the US, have become more deeply integrated. Washington is still obsessed with protectionism and unilateralism, and even blackmails the world at its whim. Before the IPEF takes shape, some people in the US are eager to install teeth on it, claiming that "an IPEF without teeth is bad for the US and catastrophic for our relationships in the region." Such bloc confrontational mentality and geopolitical evil thought have already determined the future of the IPEF.

Although the stage of the IPEF was set up, the play is not on yet. Washington cares only about its own hegemony and does not care about the interests of others, and this farce is only a temporary one.

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‘China free to set Asia policy’

World needs more than ‘beautiful words’ from the US: Global Times editorial

'We lied, we cheated, we stole', ‘the Glory of American experiment’ by former US Secretary of State/Ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo

This guy speaks the facts:

Saturday, June 4, 2022

‘China free to set Asia policy’

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) in Tokyo, Japan, on May 24, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

China free to set Asia policy despite US

China: Rise of an Asian giant Insight

China has come a long way since the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. From a poor agrarian society, it has now emerged as an industrial powerhouse, contributing nearly 30 percent of the world's economic growth. It has even overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy and lifted 800 million people out of poverty within just a single generation.

But 70 years on, the Communist Party of China under the leadership of its strongman President Xi Jinping is facing the greatest test of its leadership. The continuing social unrest in Hong Kong, a slowing economy and the escalating trade war with the United States are threatening its undermine his China dream. Can the tremendous progress that China has achieved so far simply falter from now on? Or will China continue to prevail as a force to be reckoned with in spite of all these challenges 70 years after its birth?

With 'its own destiny', Beijing's positive agenda can resist meddling, expert says

China should follow its own path and positive agenda for the Asia-Pacific region despite recent steps by the United States to enlist others to encircle it, according to a China expert.

“China is one of those few countries in the international system which is in control of its own destiny,” Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, said. “If it can attain the potential it has inside, it doesn’t have to depend on or wait for any country, including the US.”

Over the past month, the US has conducted a series of moves relating to the region around China, including hosting the US-Asean Special Summit, announcing the so-called Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, or IPEF, and leading the Quad summit and issuing a joint statement with its partners.

The IPEF launch and the Quad summit were cast as highlights of Joe Biden’s first visit to Asia as the US president in late May. The Quad brings together the US, Australia, India and Japan in a security arrangement viewed by many as an effort to contain China.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week gave a comprehensive speech on China policy in which he defined the main theme of US-China relations as competition. He noted that the US would “shape the strategic environment around Beijing” and “win the competition for the future”.

However, Gupta characteristics the US’ recent initiatives as a “China-minus strategy”.

“At the end of the day, a ‘China-minus’ strategy amounts to a China-encirclement strategy,” he said.

“At this time, Washington knows that most countries in Asia are not ready to commit to such an encirclement strategy. As such, it has framed its strategy and policies...from the Quad to the IPEF... on the basis of a ‘China-minus’ formula.”

And he expects that formula “will fail too because China sits at the heart of most of the region’s economic, technology and developmental networks, and other countries do not have the depth of commitment or the deep pockets to challenge Beijing”.

“Biden’s expectation is that the relevant Asian nations will, at his prompting, strive to build further complementarity between their policies and the US’ policies in these selective areas of decoupling,” Gupta said.

China was not mentioned much at the US-Asean summit in Washington, during Biden’s visit to Japan and South Korea, or at the Quad summit in Tokyo and in the joint statement that followed it.

But Gupta said China was the subtext in many important discussions and in the joint statement. —

"The goal here is to give the impression that the Quad is not an anti-China encirclement body but one that has a positive agenda of practical cooperation to furnish public goods in the Indo-Pacific region," he said.

"I think aside from the four countries, nobody else is fooled in this regard. Everyone understands that the Quad is directed against China. And frankly, even within the four countries, there are very few takers of their foreign office-policy line that the Quad is not China-obsessed."

Before Biden's trip, China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, warned US national security adviser Jake Sullivan on May 18 that the US was "on the wrong path" regarding Taiwan, and that its moves could lead to "dangerous situations".

Wedge issue

Gupta said: "The Biden administration has not followed through in its deeds in terms of what the president himself promised in words to President Xi Jinping.

"As such, there is understandable apprehension in Beijing that Washington is attempting to use the Taiwan issue as a wedge issue and deepen divisions between China and other East Asian countries too."

When asked, Biden said the US would defend Taiwan militarily, but afterward, the White House, the State Department and Blinken, in his speech, said that recognition of the one-China policy would not change.

Gupta said it seemed like "a two-step play".

"This happened last October, and I fully expect it to happen again in the future," he said. "I don't think this has to do with lack of policy management. The president seems determined to politically show strength, not weakness, on Taiwan policy, and leave it to his White House team thereafter to restore the equilibrium on the finer details of the policy."

The US and Taiwan launched trade talks on Wednesday, a move that was strongly condemned by Beijing.

-- China Daily/ANN

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