The Lucknow Sentinel, 2016-04-06, Page 44 Lucknow Sentinel • Wednesday, April 6, 2016
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Den Tandt: Canada needs the TPP, so when
will the Liberals finally make a case for it?
Afree -trade deal
encompassing 40
per cent of global
commerce and to which
Canada is a preliminary
signatory garnered just
two perfunctory lines in
Finance Minister Bill
Morneau's inaugural
budget: "The Trans -Pacific
Partnership (TPP) would
offer opportunities to grow
Canadian trade with Asia-
Pacific countries, enhance
North American produc-
tion and improve job qual-
ity in Canada. The govern-
ment continues to consult
Canadians in an open and
transparent manner on the
merits of ratifying the
TPP."
Damning with faint
praise, it seems. Yet why
would anyone expect dif-
ferent? A pending trade
deal is not a spending
item. Nor is it a revenue
item. Whatever its future
importance to the Cana-
dian and global econo-
mies, it should not be
expected to figure greatly
in any government mes-
saging, including a budget
document.
And yet, and yet: One
wonders at what point, if
ever, Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau's Liberal govern-
ment will make the case
for this deal, the successful
passage of which is no
longer a foregone conclu-
sion. At immediate issue is
the furtherance of com-
merce between North
America and the countries
girdling the Pacific. The
iceberg below the water-
line is the survival of the
post-war Pax Americana
itself, on which global
security and prosperity
have rested for the past 70
Column
Michael Den Tandt
years.
The TPP, it's worth
remembering, was Hillary
Clinton's grand idea, back
when she was U.S. secre-
tary of state. It was to be
an important pillar in the
Obama administration's
vaunted "pivot" to Asia,
itself intended to check
the rise of China and the
resurgence of a territori-
ally aggressive Russia,
while acknowledging the
growing demographic and
economic might of other
Pacific nations. But suc-
cessive memos about the
great pivot appear to have
reached neither Beijing
nor Moscow.
The former has lately
been harrying its neigh-
bours in the South China
Sea with supposedly inno-
cent incursions of fishing
boats, backed up by the
Chinese coast guard,
backed up by the Chinese
navy, in a too -coinciden-
tal -to -be -coincidental
echo of Russian President
Vladimir Putin's phony -
war -that -is -not -phony
invasion of Crimea in
2014.
Last week, it was 100
Chinese boats in Malay-
sian waters. Next week, it
will be the Philippines,
Taiwan or Brunei. In every
case, China is leveraging
influence on multiple
fronts, including eco-
nomic. Its apparent objec-
tive is to create a new
status quo in the South
China Sea that effectively
pushes the U.S. Navy, and
by extension the free pas-
sage of trade and interna-
tional shipping, eastward
into the Pacific.
The East China Sea, for
the time being, is relatively
quiet, despite China's con-
tinuing claims to owner-
ship of the Japan -held
Senkaku Islands, south-
west of Okinawa. But a
deeply worried Japan is
shoring up its defences in
the region. Last week the
Japanese military estab-
lished a radar station and
small base on Yonaguni
Island, 150 kilometres
south of the Senkakus.
North of Japan's main
islands, meantime, Russia
signaled last week it
intends to build a naval
base in the Kurils, which it
took from Japan at the end
of the Second World War.
Tokyo has lodged a diplo-
matic protest. Diplomacy
with Beijing to resolve the
Senkaku dispute
continues.
But one need only glance
at a map of the Western
Pacific to see the problem:
Western -allied democracies
Japan, Australia and New
Zealand, as well as the
more -or -less non-aligned
Association of Southeast
Asian Nations countries,
live in China's immediate
shadow, and to an extent
Russia's as well. Since 1945,
the default guarantor of
Pacific stability has been
the United States, with its
interlinked global network
of trade and military alli-
ances. Yet in the Pacific, as
in Europe, internationalism
itself is under siege. Donald
Trump has his European
and Russian counterparts,
and Chinese President Xi
Jinping is flexing muscle,
internally and abroad, like
no Chinese leader in recent
memory.
The TPP, therefore, is not
just another trade agree-
ment. It is a restatement of
and re -commitment to the
post-war, liberal, demo-
cratic order from which
Canada, among many
other countries, has
hugely gained. In North
America, the critical focus
is on the minutiae of
which industrial sector
wins or who loses from
this clause or that. In
Japan, the TPP is simply
considered a lifeline. The
stronger the economic
links between the Western
Pacific, the United States
and other free -trading
democracies, goes the
logic, the less likely China
will be to smash the exist-
ing international order,
since it, too, relies heavily
on Pacific trade.
Free trade provides its
own argument: Canada -
U.S. two-way trade in
goods and services has tri-
pled since 1989, when the
initial FTA went into effect.
But for Canadians, too,
there's strategic value in
broadening our reach.
How comfortable can we
be with 75 per cent of
exports U.S.-bound, as
Trump surges, or of resting
most hopes of future
growth on Europe? Not
very, I would argue. Can-
ada needs the TPP. Enough
with the studied neutral-
ity, please. The Trudeau
government, nominally
pro -trade, should be
shouting it from the
rooftops.
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