CFR Says China Must Be Defeated, & TPP Is Essential to That!

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Eric Zuesse
 

Wall Street’s Council on Foreign Relations has issued a major report, alleging that China must be defeated because it threatens to become a bigger power in the world than the U.S.

This report, which is titled “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China,” is introduced by Richard Haass, the CFR’s President, who affirms the report’s view that, “no relationship will matter more when it comes to defining the twenty-first century than the one between the United States and China.” He says that the report he is publishing argues that “strategic rivalry is highly likely if not inevitable between the existing major power of the day and the principal rising power.” Haass says that the authors “also argue that China has not evolved into the ‘responsible stakeholder’ that many in the United States hoped it would.” In other words: “cooperation” with China will probably need to become replaced by, as the report’s authors put it, “intense U.S.-China strategic competition.” 

Haass gives this report his personal imprimatur by saying that it “deserves to become an important part of the debate about U.S. foreign policy and the pivotal U.S.-China relationship.” He acknowledges that some people won’t agree with the views it expresses.

The report itself then opens by saying: “Since its founding, the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and maintaining preeminent power over various rivals, first on the North American continent, then in the Western hemisphere, and finally globally.” It praises “the American victory in the Cold War.” It then lavishes praise on America’s imperialistic dominance: “The Department of Defense during the George H.W. Bush administration presciently contended that its ‘strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor’—thereby consciously pursuing the strategy of primacy that the United States successfully employed to outlast the Soviet Union.”

The rest of the report is likewise concerned with the international dominance of America’s aristocracy or the people who control this country’s international corporations, rather than with the welfare of the public or as the U.S. Constitution described the objective of the American Government: “the general welfare.” 

The Preamble, or sovereignty clause, in the Constitution, presented that goal in this broader context: “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” 

The Council on Foreign Relations, as a representative of Wall Street, is concerned only with the dominance of America’s aristocracy. Their new report, about “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China,” is like a declaration of war by America’s aristocracy, against China’s aristocracy. This report has no relationship to the U.S. Constitution, though it advises that the U.S. Government pursue this “Grand Strategy Toward China” irrespective of whether doing that would even be consistent with the U.S. Constitution’s Preamble.

The report repeats in many different contexts the basic theme, that China threatens “hegemonic” dominance in Asia. For example:

“China’s sustained economic success over the past thirty-odd years has enabled it to aggregate formidable power, making it the nation most capable of dominating the Asian continent and thus undermining the traditional U.S. geopolitical objective of ensuring that this arena remains free of hegemonic control.”

The report never allows the matter of America’s “hegemonic control” to be even raised. Thus, “hegemony” is presumed to be evil and to be something that the U.S. must block other nations from having, because there is a “traditional U.S. geopolitical objective of ensuring that this arena remains free of hegemonic control.” In other words: the U.S. isn’t being “hegemonic” by defeating aspiring hegemons. The report offers no term to refer to “hegemony” that’s being practiced by the U.S.

The report presents China as being supremacist, such as what (to quote again from the report) “historian Wang Gungwu has described as a ‘principle of superiority’ underwriting Beijing’s ‘long-hallowed tradition of treating foreign countries as all alike but unequal and inferior to China.’ Consistent with this principle, Henry Kissinger, describing the traditional sinocentric system, has correctly noted that China ‘considered itself, in a sense, the sole sovereign government of the world.’” America’s own ‘Manifest Destiny’ or right to regional (if not global) supremacy is not discussed, because supremacism is attributed only to the aristocracies in other countries, not to the aristocracy in this country.

Rather than the “general welfare,” this document emphasizes “U.S. Vital National Interests,” which are the interests of America’s aristocrats, the owners of America’s large international corporations.

This report urges:

“The United States should invest in defense capabilities and capacity specifically to defeat China’s emerging anti-access capabilities and permit successful U.S. power projection even against concerted opposition from Beijing. … Congress should remove sequestration caps and substantially increase the U.S. defense budget.”

In other words: the Government should spiral upward the U.S. debt even more vertically (which is good for Wall Street), and, in order to enable the increased ‘defense’ expenditures, only ‘defense’ expenditures should be freed from spending-caps. Forget the public, serve the owners of ‘defense’ firms and of the large international corporations who rely on the U.S. military to protect their property abroad.

The report says that China would have no reason to object to such policies: “There is no reason why a China that did not seek to overturn the balance of power in Asia should object to the policy prescriptions contained in this report.” Only a “hegemonic” China (such as the report incessantly alleges to exist, while the U.S. itself is not ‘hegemonic’) would object; and, therefore, the U.S. should ignore China’s objections, because they would be, by definition ‘hegemonic.’ Or, in other words: God is on our side, not on theirs.

“Washington simply cannot have it both ways—to accommodate Chinese concerns regarding U.S. power projection into Asia through ‘strategic reassurance’ and at the same time to promote and defend U.S. vital national interests in this vast region.”

The authors make clear that U.S. President Obama is not sufficiently hostile toward China: “All signs suggest that President Obama and his senior colleagues have a profoundly different and much more benign diagnosis of China’s strategic objectives in Asia than do we.”

Furthermore, the report ends by portraying Obama as weak on the anti-China front: “Many of these omissions in U.S. policy would seem to stem from an administration worried that such actions would offend Beijing and therefore damage the possibility of enduring strategic cooperation between the two nations, thus the dominating emphasis on cooperation. That self-defeating preoccupation by the United States based on a long-term goal of U.S.-China strategic partnership that cannot be accomplished in the foreseeable future should end.”

The report’s “Recommendations for U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China” urges Congress to “Deliver on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, … as a geoeconomic answer to growing Chinese economic power and geopolitical coercion in Asia,” but it fails to mention that the Obama Administration has already embodied the authors’ viewpoint and objectives in the TPP, which Obama created, and which cuts China out; it could hardly be a better exemplar of their agenda. The authors, in fact, state the exact opposite: that Obama’s objective in his TPP has instead been merely “as a shot in the arm of a dying Doha Round at the World Trade Organization (WTO).” They even ignore that Obama had cut China out of his proposed TPP.

Furthermore, here is what President Obama himself told graduating West Point cadets on 28 May 2014:

“Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums.” He was saying that these future military leaders will be using guns and bombs to enforce America’s economic dominance. This is the same thing that the CFR report is saying.

His speech also asserted: “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. … The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.” (That even resembles: “Henry Kissinger, describing the traditional sinocentric system, has correctly noted that China ‘considered itself, in a sense, the sole sovereign government of the world.’” Obama is, in a sense, saying that America is the “sole sovereign government in the world.”)

He made clear that China is “dispensable,” and that the U.S. must stay on top.

However, there is a difference between Obama and the CFR on one important thing: Obama sees Russia as the chief country over which the U.S. must dominate militarily, and China as the chief country to dominate economically. But in that regard, he is actually old-line Republican, just like his 2012 opponent Mitt Romney is. 

The only difference from Romney on that is: Obama wasn’t so foolish as to acknowledge publicly a belief that he shared with Romney but already knew was an unpopular position to take in the general election.

Furthermore, whereas the CFR report ignores the public’s welfare, Obama does give lip-service to that as being a matter of concern (just as he gave lip-service to opposing Romney’s assertion that Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe”). After all, he is a ‘Democrat,’ and the authors of the CFR report write instead as if they were presenting a Republican Party campaign document. No ‘Democrat’ can be far-enough to the political right to satisfy Republican operatives. The pretense that they care about the public is therefore far less, because the Republican Party is far more open about its support of, by, and for, the super-rich. Mitt Romney wasn’t the only Republican who had contempt for the lower 47%. But even he tried to deny that he had meant it. In that sense, the CFR’s report is a Republican document, one which, quite simply, doesn’t offer the public the lip-service that Obama does (and which he politically must, in order to retain support even within his own party).

Perhaps on account of the CFR report’s condemning Obama for not being sufficiently right-wing — even though he is actually a conservative Republican on all but social issues (where China policy isn’t particularly relevant) — the report has received no mention in the mainstream press, ever since it was originally issued, back in March of this year. For whatever reason, America’s ‘news’ media ignored the report, notwithstanding its importance as an expression of old-style imperialistic thinking that comes from what many consider to be the prime foreign-affairs mouthpiece of America’s aristocracy — the CFR. The report’s first coverage was on 2 May 2015 at the World Socialist Web Site, which briefly paraphrased it but didn’t even link to it. Then, Stephen Lendman wrote about the CFR report. He briefly paraphrased it and passionately condemned it. He did link to the report. But he didn’t note the WSWS article, which had first informed the public of the CFR report’s existence — an existence which, until the WSWS article, all of America’s ‘press’ had simply ignored.

The present article is the first one to quote the CFR report, instead of merely to paraphrase and attack it. The quotations that were selected are ones presenting the report’s main points, so that readers here can see these points stated as they were written, rather than merely as I have interpreted them. My interpretation is in addition to, rather than a substitute for, what the report itself says.

———-

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.

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Leak of Secret Trade Document Reveals Sovereignty-Destroying Courts

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Written by  William F. Jasper

Why has the Obama administration kept the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement text secret from Congress and the American people? 

A newly leaked TPP chapter reveals at least one huge reason: The TPP text proposes creating tribunals (courts) that could overrule the decisions of our state and federal courts, as well as our local, state and federal laws — and our state and national constitutions.

The tribunals would be presided over by arbitrators (judges) appointed by the Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an institution of the World Bank Group. The ICSID is housed at the World Bank’s headquarters complex in Washington, D.C. The ICSID receives its funding from the World Bank and the ICSID’s governing Council is chaired by the President of the World Bank. So the proposed TPP tribunals are, in essence, a means for transferring judicial authority over vast areas of domestic law to “arbitrators” picked by the World Bank — and the central bankers and the giant commercial/investment bankers that run the World Bank.

On March 25, the international organization WikiLeaks released the “Investment Chapter” of the still-classified Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that the Obama administration has been secretly negotiating for the past several years. Despite repeated calls from members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, as well as legal scholars and law professors for the administration to make good on its pledges of transparency, the TPP negotiations have remained a closed, secret  process — except for the representatives of major corporations and Wall Street banks, along with other privileged “stakeholders,” who are not only given access to the TPP documents, but even allowed to participate in negotiations.

The WikiLeaks release of the TPP’s Chapter 2 on investment should assist patriots who are trying to build opposition to this dangerous agreement that represents a giant step toward regional and global government. It also confirms what The New American has reported over the past several years: that TPP was following in the footsteps of NAFTA, the WTO and other “free trade” arrangements that are rapidly eroding U.S. national sovereignty and independence.

Among the significant articles included in Chapter 2 is “Article II.21: Selection of Arbitrators.” This section tells us, among other things: “The Secretary-General [of ICSID] shall serve as appointing authority for an arbitration under this Section.” It states further: “if a tribunal has not been constituted within 75 days from the date that a claim is submitted to arbitration under this Section, the Secretary-General, on the request of a disputing party, shall appoint, in his or her discretion, the arbitrators not yet appointed.”

As we have noted in previous articles, Secretary of State John Kerry has been a key operative in overseeing the TPP negotiations. While he was a U.S. Senator, Kerry supported and voted for NAFTA. Years later, when NAFTA tribunals began overruling U.S. law and U.S. court decisions, Kerry used the innocence-through-ignorance defense, claiming to have been completely blindsided by the Chapter 11 tribunals that were in the agreement he voted for. 

"When we debated NAFTA," Kerry told the New York Times, "not a single word was uttered in discussing Chapter 11. Why? Because we didn't know how this provision would play out. No one really knew just how high the stakes would get." But it is not true that “no one really knew” of the danger from the tribunals; this publication, along with others warned of this very danger. But Senator Kerry and other NAFTA supporters chose to ignore, or scoff at, those warnings. Moreover, it was his duty to know what was in the agreement before voting for it; the claim of ignorance is a self-incriminating excuse.

In its unauthorized release of the purported TPP text on March 25, Wikileaks provides this description:

This is an advanced January 2015 version of the confidential draft treaty chapter from the Investment groups of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks between the United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei Darussalam. The treaty is being negotiated in secret by delegations from each of these 12 countries, who together account for 40% of global GDP. The chapter covers agreements on investments from one TPP nation to another, including empowering foreign firms to “sue” other states’ governments, as well as regulations around investor-state dispute settlements and tribunals. This document was prepared by TPP investment chapter negotiators in advance of the informal round of negotiations held in New York City 26th January to 1st February, 2015.

The WikiLeaks release also highlights another audacious feature of the TPP that we have reported previously: not only are the negotiations being conducted in secrecy, and not only are the TPP text documents being withheld from the public and the public’s elected representatives, but even more outrageous is the effort by the TPP negotiators to keep the agreement (or at least certain portions of the agreement and the negotiating process) secret for four years after it goes into effect! At the beginning of the newly released Chapter 2 is this classification notice: Finish reading

If Rand Paul Is So Pro Sovereignty, Why Does He Want to Prioritize the Globalists’ TPP?

Sir Dr. Ron, are you punishing your countrymen by throwing your son onto us? He is shameful. If this is a scheme to get him elected we're not in approval. Needs more detention time behind the woodshed.

This is a question for those among us who still believe that America can be “saved” by voting.

If you’ve already figured out a long time ago that both sides of the aisle are thoroughly corrupt, bought out puppets for banks and megacorporations, then you don’t even have to read this article unless you just want to see further proof than Rand Paul is exactly just such a puppet.

Protesters recently disrupted a senate hearing over the fast-tracking of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), waving banners that said things like “TPP FAST TRACK — JOB KILLING ACT” and screaming things like, “they’re going to ship more of our jobs overseas and lower our wages!!!”

NAFTA already helped facilitate a lot of that and we’ve been in a steady decline ever since. The TPP is NAFTA on steroids.
People are getting angry, restless. As the obscene wealth gap in this country continues to widen and the puppet masters running the show continue to clamp down on the plebs, this situation is only going to get worse for the majority of us.
The TPP, if you aren’t familiar, is no less than an all-out assault on our national sovereignty.

But I’m not the only one saying that. Here’s a summation from William F. Jasper of The New American:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, as it is called, is an all-out assault on our national sovereignty. It would unconstitutionally transfer legislative powers from the U.S. Congress, our state legislatures, and our city and county governments to multi-national corporations and unaccountable international bureaucrats at the World Trade Organization, or WTO. Incredibly, it also would transfer judicial powers from our federal and state courts — which are bad enough — to globalist TPP judges at regional tribunals and the WTO. It would also confer huge advantages on foreign businesses and large multinationals, while at the same time putting companies that operate here in America — especially small and medium-sized enterprises — at a competitive disadvantage. American businesses would remain shackled by the regulations of EPA, FDA, OSHA, etc. while their foreign competitors could operate here unimpeded by those same strictures.
Like the infamous NAFTA trade agreement passed in the ’90s, the TPP would usher in another wave of outsourcing, as the remaining manufacturing and technology bases would be given incentives to move to Pacific Rim countries, resulting in millions more American job losses. [emphasis added]

Hm. That doesn’t sound very good for the average American, does it? The elite behind it, however, who are pushing us all toward a New World Order, are rubbing their grimy little hands (hooves) together with glee at this.

By the way, it was crafted by these megacorporations and their lobbyists and interests in secret. The text wasn’t even allowed to be read by anyone (including Congress) until WikiLeaks leaked it all back in January 2014. Surely it’s been amended since.

Jasper also talks about how this is essentially working toward, what else? Global “governance” through a breakdown of control into “regional governance”:

The TPP and TTIP should be of special concern to Americans, since, as we shall detail presently, the authors and promoters of these agreements admit that they deal with far more than trade and have been designed to drag the United States into “regional governance” on a host of issues. The architects of the TPP and TTIP are virtually unanimous in their head-over-heels praise of, and support for, the political and economic merger taking place in the European Union (EU). The once-sovereign nations of Europe have been tricked, bribed, and browbeaten into yielding control over almost every aspect of their lives to globalist banking and corporate elites and their bureaucratic servitors in Brussels.

Just for icing on the crap cake that is this trade agreement, here’s a video from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about how the TPP is the “biggest threat to the Internet you’ve probably never heard of.”
The TPP is just more corporatist, globalist b.s. that will hasten our nation’s demise. Period.

Then again, that’s what free trade agreements have traditionally been. They are anything but “free” — more like sweetheart crony capitalist deals for select megacorporations (you know, the ones that essentially own all of our politicians in this country) under the guise of foreign policy which will further screw America over in a multitude of ways including killing even more of our jobs and widening the wealth gap even more.

In breaking down the specifics of the TPP’s dangers, Aaron Dykes over at Truthstream Media sums up these globalization tools well:

Globalization agreements, including the likes of GATT, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA and other multilateral treaties, establish more than just trade between nations. Their deconstruction of trade barriers and tariffs are touted for creating cheaper goods, but often criticized for hurting farmers, small businesses, home-based industries, environmental factors and workers.

And the list, as it usually does, goes on and on.

SO THEN, if Rand Paul is really so pro freedom and national sovereignty as he claims, WHY then is he seen here giving a speech just a few months ago (which just so happened to coincide with the TPP ministerial meeting conducted October 19-24 in Sydney, Australia) urging Obama to prioritize the TPP by the year’s end?
Gee is it…because he’s another controlled opposition PUPPET?

That last question is rhetorical. There’s only one clear cut answer and I already know what it is.

But I’m not the only one. More people are catching on that this whole federal election game is totally rigged and no one even gets into the game unless they are selected. Because our presidents are all selected these days, not elected. Voting is just a stage show to make the American public (read: plebs) feel included when they cast a ballot between two false choices which will inevitably keep the oligarchy status quo as usual.

It was bad enough when Rand was just paling around with George P. Bush and going to secret powerbroker meetings with “Bush’s Brain” Karl Rove up on Mackinac Island… but this?


It’s treasonous. I wonder what his dad thinks.

Rand’s brand of fake tea party libertarian lite only fools people who are half asleep or are so desperate for hope and change they will lie to themselves. Hope and change didn’t work so well last time, did it? Well, it’s all fake “hope and change,” every four years. Stop buying it. Only people who don’t vote, as George Carlin would say, have a right to complain here.

Please wake up. We can’t vote our way out of this, America. The country is too far gone.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

'Trade Experts': "Upgrade NAFTA By Completing the TPP Treaty" !

NEW YORK – Republicans in the House are preparing to follow the lead of the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to rubber-stamp the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, the most sweeping free-trade agreement since NAFTA. Photo Source WND Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/gop-set-to-fast-track-new-world-order-pact/#sqD5jDv1woH48Hpa.99 Expect the rank 'n file GOP incumbents to lack the courage to stand their ground for America's independence. At best they'll go down whining and moaning that "we didn't have the votes". The inference - without substance - meaning YOU need to elect more of us! Rebuttal comment: It's not a dearth of Republicans in congress. It's a scarcity of Americanists in both parties. Obama in Mexico to meet with N. American leaders Feb 19, 1:38 PM EST By JIM KUHNHENN Associated Press

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak TOLUCA, Mexico (AP) -- President Barack Obama headed into a summit Wednesday with Mexican and Canadian leaders eager to engage on issues of trade and other neighbor-to-neighbor interests, even as Congress is pushing back against some of his top cross-border agenda items. Obama, flanked by his trade negotiator and secretaries of Commerce and Homeland Security, stepped off Air Force One and onto a red carpet in Toluca, near Mexico City, where an honor guard lined the walk to Obama's limousine. At an ornate state government complex nearby, Obama was to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the North American Leaders' Summit, A full agenda awaited the three North American Free Trade Agreement partners, including commerce, immigration, energy and security. The talks will highlight how increasingly interconnected the three economies are 20 years since the NAFTA took effect. But they will also illustrate the limits of Obama's power, his hands tied on immigration by congressional Republicans and on trade by his fellow Democrats. The summit also takes place against a backdrop of tensions surrounding revelations the National Security Agency spied on Pena Nieto before he was elected and gained access to former Mexican President Felipe Calderon's email system when he was in office. To the North, Canadian leaders have voiced frustration at the amount of time the Obama administration has taken to decide whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada 1,179 miles to Nebraska, where existing pipelines would then carry the crude to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. The NSA and pipeline issues could surface in one-on-one talks that Obama plans to have with Pena Nieto and Harper on the summit's sidelines but are not expected to be a factor in the broader, joint discussions among the three leaders. Obama met Pena Nieto last year when he traveled to Mexico. Wednesday's visit is scheduled to last less than nine hours. Keeping with the trade focus of the trip, Obama signed an executive order aboard Air Force One en route to the summit. The order is intended to speed up the process for approving import or export cargo, the White House said. The order directs the government to finish a new electronic system to allow companies to submit their documentation to the federal government without paper forms. Twenty years after NAFTA's approval, trade experts say the agreement is due for an upgrade to take into account the current globalized environment and to address issues not addressed in the original pact. But rather than reopen NAFTA, the three countries are instead relying on negotiations underway to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade bloc of 12 countries in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. The Obama administration is hoping those negotiations are completed this year. The U.S. is also in negotiations over a Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union. But the president is facing stiff election-year resistance from Democratic leaders over his desire to get "fast track" trade authority, which would require Congress to give yes-or-no votes on the trade agreements and deny lawmakers the opportunity to amend them. Both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have made clear they don't want Obama pushing the issue this year. Trade agreements have typically been more popular with Republicans than Democrats; business groups tend to support the removal of trade barriers whereas labor unions fear the loss of jobs. President Bill Clinton faced staunch Democratic opposition when he pressed for NAFTA approval in 1993. Obama expressed his desire to win the agreements during his State of the Union address last month. But he has since focused on domestic economic policies and hasn't drawn attention to the trade issue. Still, White House officials say the president will make it clear to Pena Nieto and Harper that the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, which are further along than the ones with the European Union, should be completed this year. "We're going to continue to press for this priority, as we have in the past, mindful, of course, and recognizing that there are differing views on these issues in both parties, not just the Democratic Party," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday, when asked about the lack of support from the president's party. Finish reading >

How Congress and the Executive Branch Subvert the Constitution by Substituting "Agreements" for Treaties

 

Summary

U.S. trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), World Trade Organization agreements, and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have been approved by majority vote of each house rather than by two-thirds vote of the Senate—that is, they have been treated as congressional-executive agreements rather than as treaties.