U.S. ruins APEC Summit

U.S. Busts APEC Summit With Tariff Demands - New York Times Blames China

 

Moon of Alabama,

20 November, 2018

A New York Times report about last weekend's summit in Asia demonstrates how U.S. media misinform their readers about international events.

The recent summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Papua New Guinea failed to come up with a joint statement. Prime Minister Peter O’Neill of Papua New Guinea, who hosted the summit, promised to issue a "chair's statement" instead. None can be found so far on the APEC website. This was the first time since 1989 that no joined 'Leaders' Declaration' was issued.

The reason was a spat between the U.S. and China about a clause the U.S. tried to insert into the joint declaration.

But as the Times tells the story, the failure of the summit was solely China's fault:

At a major international gathering in Papua New Guinea over the weekend, the United States wanted to end with a group statement emphasizing free trade. China objected.

But instead of working out the disagreement through dialogue, Chinese officials barged uninvited into the office of the host country’s foreign minister demanding changes in the official communiqué.
...
“China doesn’t care if it looks like a boor. If you are a tough guy, you don’t care what others think,” said Hugh White, a former military strategist for the Australian government and author of “The China Choice.”

Such behavior was only surprising because it had been more than 30 years since the world had witnessed such edginess, Mr. White said.

The Chinese deny that the APEC incident happened at all. Mr. White seems to have missed the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks during which the U.S. president and his secretary of state boorishly busted a meeting, held by China, Brazil, India and others, they were not invited to join:

Once they found the makeshift conference room where the meeting was being held, Obama, Clinton, and their aides approached a "commotion" as she describes it — foreign aides and security guards outside the door. According to Clinton, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs confronted a Chinese guard. "In the commotion the president slipped through the door and yelled, 'Mr Premier!' really loudly, which got everyone's attention. The Chinese guards put their arms up against the door again, but I ducked under and made it through," Clinton wrote.

Back the NYT's APEC piece:

The American official said the Chinese had taken issue with two portions of the draft communiqué that Washington supported and other members embraced.

One paragraph said the APEC member economies agreed to fight against unfair trade practices. Another paragraph said that members of the group would work together to improve the “negotiating, monitoring and dispute settlement functions” of the World Trade Organization.

The NYT report does not say what the U.S. promoted paragraphs actually said. Nor does it quote any Chinese source. What are "unfair trade agreements"? What WTO changes were asked for? Why are these "improvements". Why is that supposed to be an APEC issue?

The AFP's has a way more informative take of the talks:

"You know the two big giants in the room. What can I say?" said host and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, conceding defeat.
...
Sources said going into the meeting the United States had pressed for the leaders to issue what amounted to a denunciation of the World Trade Organization and a call for its wholesale reform. That demand was a step too far for Beijing, which would likely get less preferential treatment under any changes.

...

O'Neill indicated the WTO had been a sticking point in agreeing a joint communique.

"APEC has got no charter over the World Trade Organization. That is a fact," he said. "Those matters can be raised at the World Trade Organization."

The U.S. obviously pressed others to agree to WTO changes.

When China joined the WTO in 2001 its GDP per capita was less than $2,000. It was classified as a "developing country" which gave it some justified privileges. Eighteen years later China's GDP per capita is approaching $8,000. The U.S. GDP per capita is $53,000, while the EU's is about $37,000. China has certainly become more wealthy but it is still not a fully developed country. While the issue is not urgent it will have to be discussed and China is willing to do that.

But the issue that the U.S. pressed for was even more controversial.

AFP continues:

"Business leaders do not want to speak out, but behind the scenes here, they are talking over dinner saying 'how has this happened'?" Denis O'Brien, the billionaire chairman of Digicel told AFP.

"It's a very forced situation, one country is trying to force all the other countries to change tariffs agreed over years," O'Brien said.

What the U.S. actually tries to achieve is not only to break certain privileges China holds.

It wants to justify its punitive tariffs against China and other countries which are illegal under WTO rules. Trump's original plan was going even further. He considered a bill that would allow him to raise tariffs at will without congressional consent:

Nations are prohibited from setting different tariff rates for different countries outside of free trade agreements and the established tariff ceiling that WTO members have agreed to.

"It would be the equivalent of walking away from the WTO and our commitments there without us actually notifying our withdrawal," a source familiar with the bill told the outlet but added that Congress would never agree to the bill, describing it as “insane.”
...
Axios had reported that Trump had asked aides about pulling the U.S. out of the WTO, and said the world had used the organization to “screw the United States.”

The NYT is pointing in the wrong direction when it blames China of the failure of the APEC summit. It was the U.S. that tried to abuse the summit's joint statement by inserting clauses that a. to not belong within the frame of APEC and b. are an attempt to subvert internationally agreed trade rules.

It is certainly not only China that rejects the Trump administrations attempts to change the rule book for international trade that all WTO members have agreed to. The chair of the meeting agreed with the Chinese side in this. Any reference of WTO reform with the aim to change tariff rules is not an APEC issue and should have no place in its joint statement. The NYT readers though, will never learn this.

What the NYT defends as "emphasizing free trade" and as a "fight against unfair trade practices" is the exact opposite. The Trump administration tries to change trade rules so they would allow it to introduce tariffs as it wishes. The Trump administration does not want to "improve" the WTO, it wants to abolish it.  Its measures would destroy free trade.

The Trump administration will not be unhappy about the failed APEC summit. It is actively trying to thwart inner-Asian cooperation. It hopes to induce Asian countries to join its anti-China front. The NYT, it seems, is fully supportive of these moves.

U.S.-China Clash at Asian Summit Was Over More Than Words

Imperial decline and Trans-Pacific 'partnership'

'US nervous breakdown’ trips up Obama’s Asia pivot

RT,

8 October, 2013

With the US government caught up in a full-on nervous breakdown, President Barack Obama had bigger fish to fry than the APEC summit, Dr. Conn Hallinan, a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, told RT.

From October 5-7, world leaders gathered at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Bali, Indonesia, although much has been made of Obama’s conspicuous absence.

Obama canceled his trip to deal with the partial US government shutdown, which, if not resolved, could prove "catastrophic," the White House has warned.

Obama had originally intended to discuss a 12-nation free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

On Sunday, the Prime Minister of Singapore expressed his regret over Obama’s absence, saying the world wanted to see “a US president who is able to travel and fulfill his international duties.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, said his absence was justified, as any “leader of a state would have done the same” in Obama’s position.

Hallinan says that despite the importance of the United States’ Asia pivot, the current crisis gripping America is perhaps the gravest since the Civil War.

RT: Barack Obama was scheduled to attend the APEC summit in Bali, however his presence is now required at home, due to the government shutdown. Is the attendance of John Kerry as a US representative enough in this case?

Conn Hallinan: I don’t think that it’s terribly serious that the president isn’t at the Bali meetings. I think that most people in the region know what the policies of the United States are, and I think Kerry is pushing very hard in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I also think that most countries recognize that the US is in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and that the president basically has to be at home to, I don’t know, to try and administer anti-psychotics. I don’t think that it has much of an effect on foreign policy at this point; obviously, in the long run, it might have an effect.

RT: The Malaysian prime minister said the absence of President Obama is a missed opportunity for him to share his thoughts about America's new policy toward Asia. What kind of repercussions, if any, can we expect here?

CH: I don’t expect serious repercussions. One of the reasons why the president has made the decision not to go is largely domestic. One of the things that the State Department has been saying now since Obama had to cancel the trip is: “We’re losing out on these opportunities, the Chinese are eating our lunch, and we’re being isolated in Asia. You see, that’s what the Republicans have wrought.” I don’t really think that to Asians – with a few exceptions, and obviously Malaysia is one of them, a player, but not a very important player at this point – it makes a whole lot of difference. Again, it depends on how long the situation goes on. I don’t want to make light of the government shutdown; I think it’s a serious constitutional crisis in the US, and maybe the most serious since the Civil War of 1861.

RT: Obama's domestic problems are so serious they could threaten the global economy as a whole. Could he really have made time to attend the summit?

CH: I think that if the Republicans decide to sort of push the button, which means that they will default on the US debt, that’s going to have global consequences. And you have a feeble – very feeble – economic recovery going in Europe at this time; I think it would tank that. I think that it would have a serious effect all the way across the globe. Is that going to reverberate back on the US? Well, certainly it would. But again, I think that most people don’t need Obama’s presence in order to draw those conclusions or to see where those policies go. At this point, the Republicans say that they won’t allow it to get to the point of essentially absconding on our debt, but who knows? It depends on what happens over the next few weeks. 

Washington doesn't have enough resources for Asia pivot

RT: Do you think that by trying to solve problems in the Middle East the US actually forgot about its “Pivot to Asia” intentions?

CH: I think one thing about the pivot that people should keep in mind is that in a sense the US has always been in Asia: this has been our largest trading partner for the last 100 years. It’s also been the place where we’ve fought the most wars from the end of the 19th century on. So the idea that the US is pivoting toward Asia is a little bit of a misnomer. I do think that there were some illusions on the part of the US that they were going to be able to get out of Afghanistan scot-free, that they were going to be able to not to get deeply involved in the Syrian situation, and I think those have not shown themselves to be the case. I think people need to be careful. It isn’t that the US has forgotten Asia; it’s that what they’re attempting to do is to directly challenge China at this point. Does this affect that? It might in the long run, I’m not sure it does so in the short run.

RT: The “Pivot to Asia” is one of the Obama government's central foreign policy initiatives. Has anything really been achieved on this front?

CH: Not really.  They have moved some military forces, they have put 2,500 marines in Australia, they’ve sort of roiled the waters in the South China Sea, but kind of kept a distance in the East China Sea.  Not a great deal has happened at this point. But again, we’re in the midst of this incredible craziness at home; domestically, and that does have an effect on the military budget, the State Department budget, etc. The Obama administration is not able to put as much resources into the Asia pivot as it had originally planned. But in the long run, what you’re seeing her is, the United States is still very much focused on challenging China and still focused on building a kind of ring of regional alliances that will attempt to isolate China in very much the same way the United States attempted to isolate Russia during the Cold War.

Prime minister warns contentious issues could derail TPP deal

Radio NZ,

9 October, 2013

Talks to secure a Pacific-wide free trade deal by the end of the year remain on track, but the prime minister is warning contentious issues could still derail it.

In a statement, the Trans Pacific Partnership leaders say they have made significant progress in recent months, and have told officials to work on resolving all outstanding issues by Christmas.

John Key says it's crucial the momentum to complete the deal continues, following Tuesday's meeting at the APEC summit in Bali.

Mr Key says the prize - better access to a trade bloc that holds 800 million people and accounts for a third of world trade - is worth it.

But he warns contentious issues remain, including better access for agricultural products, stricter copyright protections, and giving corporations more rights to sue governments.

Listen to John Key on Morning Report

Opponents say the same difficult issues that could doom the talks, like access for dairy products and the treatment of copyright protection, have not gone away.

They argue the TPP gives unprecedented power to corporations, and undermines consumer, labour and environmental interests.

A critic of the TPP, Auckland University's Jane Kelsey, says it seems less likely it will be signed by its deadline at the end of the year.

Listen to Jane Kelsey on the talks

The APEC conference

China, Russia sound alarm on world economy at APEC summit

China and Russia sounded the alarm about the state of the global economy at a summit on Saturday and urged Asian-Pacific countries to protect themselves by forging deeper regional economic ties.

Reuters,

8 September, 2012

Chinese President Hu Jintao said Beijing would do all it could to strengthen the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and boost prospects of a global recovery by rebalancing its economy, Asia's biggest.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said trade barriers must be smashed down. He is hosting the event on a small island linked to the Pacific port of Vladivostok by a spectacular new bridge, a symbol of Moscow's pivotal turn to Asia away from debt-stricken Europe.

"It's important to build bridges, not walls. We must continue striving for greater integration," Putin told APEC leaders seated at a round table in a room with a view of the $1 billion cable-stayed bridge, the largest of its kind.

"The global economic recovery is faltering. We can overcome the negative trends only by increasing the volume of trade in goods and services and enhancing the flow of capital."

China's Hu told business leaders before the summit the world economy was being hampered by "destabilizing factors and uncertainties" and the crisis that hit in 2008-09 was far from over. Beijing would play its role, he said, in strengthening the recovery.

"We will work to maintain the balance between keeping steady and robust growth, adjusting the economic structure and managing inflation expectations," he said.

Hu spelled out plans for China, whose economic growth has slowed as Europe's debt crisis worsened, to pump $157 billion into infrastructure investments in agriculture, energy, railways and roads. Hu, who steps down as China's leader in the autumn after a Communist Party congress, promised continuity and stability for the economy.

Putin, who has just begun a new six-year term as president, said on Friday Russia would be a stable energy supplier and a gateway to Europe for Asian countries, and also pledged to develop his country's transportation network.

Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas export monopoly, signed an agreement with Japan to develop plans for a $7 billion liquefied natural gas plant on Russia's Pacific coast, underscoring Moscow's eastward shift.

RUSSIA LOOKS EAST

The relative strength of China's economy, by far the largest in Asia and second in the world to the United States, is key to Russia's decision to look to the Pacific Rim as it seeks to develop its economy and Europe battles economic problems.

APEC, which includes the United States, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Canada, groups countries which account for 40 percent of the world's population, 54 percent of its economic output and 44 percent of trade.

APEC members are broadly showing relatively strong growth, but boosting trade and growth is vital for the group as it tries to remove the trade barriers that hinder investment.

"It is absolutely clear that the most important region for economic growth this decade - and probably the next decade - will be the Pacific," said Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

The European Union has been at odds with both China and Russia over trade practices it regards as limiting free competition. Cooperation in APEC is also hindered by territorial and other disputes among some of the members.

Putin, 59, limped slightly as he greeted leaders at the summit. Aides said he had merely pulled a muscle. Underlining Putin's good health, a spokesman said he had a "very active lifestyle."

Discussions at the two-day meeting focused on food security and trade liberalization. An agreement was reached before the summit to slash import duties on technologies that can promote economic growth without endangering the environment.

Breakthroughs are not expected on other trade issues at the meeting, from which U.S. President Barack Obama is absent. He has been attending the Democratic Party convention and Washington is represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton said after talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the U.S. government was working with Congress to pass legislation needed to upgrade trade ties with Russia, which recently joined the World Trade Organisation.

Tensions persisted between the two former Cold War foes over Iran and Syria, however, and Clinton had only a short meeting with Putin late on day one of the summit, which culminated in a lavish firework show over Vladivostok's harbor that was reported in the Russian media to have cost nearly $10 million.

Also missing the summit was Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who went home after learning her father had died.

Interview with Vladimir Putin

Putin slams UK hypocrisy over Assange

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the British government of hypocrisy over the order to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to Sweden to face questioning over the sex assault claims, arguing that the case seems to be “political”.

Press TV,

6 September, 2012

Interviewing with the RT news channel, he said that the decision of the judicial system in Britain concerning Assange’s extradition to the North European country clearly shows the UK government’s “double standards”.

“As far as I know, Ecuador asked Sweden for guarantees that Assange will not be extradited from Sweden to the United States. It has received no such guarantees. Of course, this leads one to think that this is a political case,” Putin said.

After the Ecuadorian government granted Assange political asylum on August 16, Britain vowed to prevent the 41-year-old Australian activist leave the country, insisting that it would still move to extradite him to Sweden. However, it is believed that Assange’s extradition to the North European country is a cover for sending him to the US, where the WikiLeaks revelation of the US diplomatic cables created massive embarrassment for Washington in 2010.

Meanwhile, in a meeting with foreign journalists in Spain’s capital Madrid, Assange's lawyer Baltazar Garzon said that based on information he obtained from people who have testified in the probe of Bradley Manning, US prosecutors have secretly launched an investigation into Assange and WikiLeaks.

Following the release of hundreds of thousands of classified US documents by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, a US army soldier, was arrested in Iraq over the suspicion that he had passed the information to Assange.

“The procedure [against Assange] exists. We are going to ask US authorities to tell us if they have launched a procedure against WikiLeaks that affects Julian Assange,” Garzon said.

Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned British officials’ threats to storm the Ecuadorian embassy in London as unlawful and urged the UK government to respect Assange’s rights as a political refugee.

Lecturing students and professors of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), which is affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov said that under international laws, it would be illegal for the UK police to raid the South American country’s diplomatic mission in the UK capital, where the WikiLeaks founder has taken refuge for more than two months.

Meanwhile, backtracking on the UK government’s intransigence on the issue of Assange, British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for a diplomatic solution to the stand-off with Ecuador over the activist in a written statement to the House of Commons on September 3.

Two days later on Wednesday September 5, in response to UK’s request, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government would resume talks with Britain this week over the fate of the WikiLeaks founder.

Here is the RT interview with Vladimir Putin

China's alternative to the TPP

The APEC meeting is opening in Vladivostok and PM Key is hoping for a meeting with Vladimir Putin and a free-trade agreement with Russia.

This is all I can find on this – it seems China has its own alternative to the TPP.

US- China rivalry to APEC talks

Radio NZ,

7 September, 2012

Superpower rivalry is the backdrop to this year's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.

Occupy movement under siege

State of Siege USA: Why Would They Target #Occupy Now?

by Richard Eskow

Consultant, writer and Senior Fellow, Campaign for America's Future

Huffington Post,

15 November, 2011

Suddenly the Occupy movement is under siege everywhere. There's been a wave of simultaneous, seemingly coordinated clampdowns on peaceful demonstrators in cities all across the country. Why now?

It could be nothing more than one heck of a coast-to-coast 

coincidence, at least theoretically speaking. But there are indications that this might have been at least partially planned and coordinated at a national level.

Either way the timing's very interesting -- and, for some people, very convenient. The nation's expecting a deficit package from the undemocratic super committee, anticipating another possible free trade deal, and waiting to see whether Wall Street will go unpunished for its foreclosure crime wave. All that makes this a very good time for dissident voices to suddenly disappear.

Unfortunately for them, it's not going to be that easy.

The Ides of November

Occupy Oakland became famous after the brutal police suppression that led to the wounding of Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran. And Occupy Wall Street is the flagship site, the Tahrir Square of the new movement. That makes them high-value targets.

This week the Oakland location was struck first, followed by the blow against Wall Street. Similar police crackdowns occurred in Portland, Denver, and Phoenix. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan may have let a little too much information slip when she told an interviewer that she "was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation."

The Oakland crackdown was quickly followed by Bloomberg's move against Occupy Wall Street. That one-two punch took out the two most visible occupations, and it was quickly followed by similar moves in other cities.

That led to widespread speculation that this wave of police actions was planned and executed at the national level. As Joshua Holland commented, it's unclear whether this wave of activity was "coordinated" or not.

There are a range of possibilities. This might have been a coordinated assault. Or those mayors may have only been sharing information and ideas. Or it could have been something in between.

To know the answers we'll need to know who was on the call, whether anyone participated from the Federal government (either on the call itself or in the planning process), and what was said. 

Whatever happened on that call -- or before and after -- there's been a lot of action all of a sudden. Doesn't it make you wonder?

Why now?

Whatever the background story is, if you're working for the 1% this is an excellent time to make the occupations vanish. Look what's coming down the pipeline:

Unrepresentative Democracy: The Congressional "Super Committee" has a deadline coming up. Everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the President of the United States are pressuring its members to come up with a deal. One of the proposals on the table would protect the tax privileges of the 1% by preserving their Bush tax cuts, and would fund that cushy deal for the rich by cutting Medicare and Medicaid while very possibly raising taxes on the middle class.

And that's the Democratic offer. What are the Republican ones like? Don't ask.

The Committee's ideas have been overwhelmingly rejected by a majority of American voters in poll after poll. But if the committee "succeeds," its agreement will be unveiled to the US public and then fast-tracked to Congress for a procedurally-rigged voted, on November 23. That's just about a week from now.

Free trade ain't free: Today President Obama attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and worked his fellow leaders on behalf of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade accord. That accord is strongly supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the same large corporate interests who pushed NAFTA and other free trade agreements.

At the same time, the president of South Korea made a surprise visit to his nation's legislature to push for the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. If he's successful, that accord could be announced at any time.

These free trade agreements aren't "free," of course. There's a price to be paid, and the 99% will pay it: in jobs, stagnating wages, and a struggling economy. Politicians in both parties want to bask in the glow of any new agreement, and would like to claim these are developments worth celebrating. Voices of protest aren't in the script.

Let me call you "sweetheart": The Administration has been pressuring the Attorneys General of our largest states to accept a shamefully sweet "settlement" with Wall Street that would grant them immunity from prosecution from their well-documented mortgage crime wave, a spree that included documented cases of perjury, investor fraud, and tax evasion. Nobody would go to jail, people wrongfully evicted from their homes might receive as little as $1500 in compensation, and banks would still have the mechanisms in place (through "MERS") to do it all over again.

The Occupy movement has highlighted the legal double standard that lets Wall Street executives commit crimes over and over, and yet these sweetheart deals keep coming. Only last week Citigroup executives were allowed to pay a fine (actually, their shareholders will pay it), "admit no wrongdoing," and promise not to break the law again, for a kind of fraud for which they had they had already paid fines, admitted no wrongoing, and promised not to do it again.

Five times.

While the timing is closely held, an agreement could be announced at any time. It's easy to see how they might want to keep lower Manhattan clear of the 99% for that one.

November Again

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet .. then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"

We're seeing the same plays being run from the same playbook, over and over again. One year ago there was another "bipartisan" panel, the President's Deficit Commission, whose proposal was scheduled to being fast-tracked through Congress by bypassing normal legislative procedure. Republicans were still holding the line on low taxes for the rich while Democrats were willing to do a deal with them, crooked bankers were getting off scott-free, and both parties were pushing job-killing trade agreements.

Plus ça change and all that. Except that this year we have the Occupy movement. And whether they're coordinated or not, a lot of people are going through a lot of trouble to take it away from us. If they expect us to go "out to sea" like a Melville character they've got another think comin'. (Besides, who can afford an ocean voyage these days?)

It's November again. But Occupy's here and it's not going away. There will be a new wave of demonstrations on November 17. You can learn more about how to participate here. Nothing clears the rainfall of the spirit like the bright light of direct action.

Citizen movements are inconvenient for the people in power, but look at it this way: Isn't it time they had a dank, drizzly November of the soul? Or at least let us have a little glimpse of the warm sun they've been keeping all to themselves? The rest of us have had more than our share of rain already.

“Quiet ‘Background’ Music for APEC Summit”

OWS News

Popular Hawaiian musician Makana was invited to sing for President Obama, Chinese leader Hu Jintao of China, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and more than a dozen other heads of state as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gala in Hawaii.

Makana was only supposed to provide quiet Hawaiian background music.

Instead, he played – for 45 minutes straight – the “Occupy” song he had just written – “We Are the Many” – forcefully telling the 1% to their face that the 99% will keep protesting and occupying until we win:

Your thievery has left the people numb … We occupy the streets. We occupy the cause. We occupy the offices of you, ’til you do the bidding of the many, not the few.

Newspaper report available HERE