{"id":13702,"date":"2016-12-05T21:38:44","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T22:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=13702"},"modified":"2016-11-23T15:35:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T07:35:32","slug":"the-trump-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2016\/12\/05\/13702\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

More turmoil ahead for the US, Asia and the world<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editorial from Socialist magazine (published by CWI in China) issue 40, Winter 2016<\/p>\n

The world is in a state of shock after America\u2019s election. Asian government\u2019s are watching with baited breath for clues over where US foreign policy will turn under the new president. Donald Trump built his election campaign on a nationalist \u2018America First\u2019 economic agenda \u2013 to break with existing trade deals and review old military alliances. It is unclear how far his administration\u2019s policies will conform to his right-wing campaign rhetoric and the possible international fallout not least for Asia.<\/p>\n

The elevation of such an unpredictable, racist and sexist figure to the US presidency is the mark of a historic crisis for American capitalism and its political system, which is deeply distrusted and compromised in the eyes of the US population. The election campaign revealed a chasm between ordinary working people, whose lives have become much tougher since the global financial crisis, and an arrogant out-of-touch elite.<\/p>\n

The traditional Republican Party hierarchy is now trying to impose a degree of \u2018moderation\u2019 upon Trump, to retreat from some of his more explosive political positions, but the outcome of this power struggle is far from certain.<\/p>\n

\"Xi
Xi Jinping addresses APEC summit in Peru.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Break-up of the TPP<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a sense of panic among governments across Asia, and the big global corporations which have driven the process of capitalist globalisation, that Trump\u2019s administration will initiate a pull back from global economic treaties and the US role as \u201cthe world\u2019s policeman\u201d. The first casualty could be president Obama\u2019s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation trade and investment bloc, which Trump has promised to abandon. On the campaign trail Trump said the TPP was \u201ca disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump is a crude expression of a process already in play, with every capitalist government practising various forms of protectionism in an attempt to shield themselves from economic crisis. World trade has stopped growing, suffering a \u201ccardiac arrest\u201d this year, according to a recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report.<\/p>\n

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who heads the government with the most to lose from the TPP\u2019s collapse, was the first foreign leader to meet president-elect Trump, in New York while en route to the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Peru. Abe\u2019s government, composed of politicians who mirror Trumps\u2019 right-wing nationalism, fear that China will exploit the demise of the TPP and any perception of a US retreat from Asia to expand its own economic and diplomatic footprint across the region. This follows recent shifts towards Beijing, seeking increased military and economic ties, by former US allies Malaysia and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

The TPP, which excludes China, was designed to underpin US capitalism\u2019s drive to re-implant itself as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific region \u2013 a policy known as the \u201cAsian pivot\u201d. Trump\u2019s policies, paradoxically, for someone elected on an anti-China platform, could therefore benefit China. \u201cThere is no doubt that if the TPP fails it will be a huge win for China, politically and economically,\u201d said Brian Jackson, a China economist at consultancy IHS Global Insight.<\/p>\n

Threat of trade war<\/strong><\/p>\n

This, and the wider threat of a trade war, hung over the November summit of APEC, a looser 21-nation group that includes the US, China, and most Asia-Pacific economies. For Xi Jinping, the APEC meeting was a golden opportunity to promote China\u2019s alternative to the TPP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a bloc that groups together China, the ASEAN countries, Japan and South Korea, but excludes the US. The Financial Times summed up the fears of global and US capitalists: \u201cWhen US President Barack Obama sits down with Xi Jinping and other Pacific Rim leaders in Peru\u2026 he may feel he is handing the Chinese leader the keys to the global economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Against this background the tone of China\u2019s state media has shifted from anxiety to cautious optimism \u2013 that Trump\u2019s presidency might be good for Beijing. After all, the president-elect is known for his authoritarian leanings, praising many of the world\u2019s dictatorships and commending Beijing for showing \u201cstrength\u201d in 1989 by crushing the pro-democracy movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeijing is understandably relieved,\u201d proclaimed the state-run China Daily, commenting on the possible break-up of the TPP. The ultra-nationalist Global Times ran a boastful editorial predicting the emergence of a \u201cChina-led Asia\u201d and claiming that China\u2019s economic strength had \u201cgeographically fractured\u201d the US pivot to Asia. Such over-the-top confidence is not commensurate with the real state of China\u2019s economy, which \u2013 like the US \u2013 is overextended and mired in debt. The deepening global crisis has shocks in store for both governments.<\/p>\n

More than anything, Trump\u2019s rule will bring \u201cinstability\u201d, especially in international relations. And \u201cinstability\u201d is what the Chinese dictatorship fears most of all. The world is on the threshold of a new and stormy period; with much sharper imperialist conflicts. Trump\u2019s government will come under enormous pressure from the US military and corporate establishment, and from its regional allies, not to step back from Asia in military terms or to give China a free hand. Unlikely as this seems today, this could even lead to a rethink over TPP, and its survival in another form.<\/p>\n

It is a comment on today\u2019s topsy-turvy global economy that state capitalist China is now the main voice defending capitalist globalisation and \u2018free trade\u2019, at least in words, while these policies are increasingly challenged in the US and other Western economies. In part, this is because China is a dictatorship untroubled by elections and referendums. The pressures accumulating within global capitalism, reflected in a distorted way by Trump\u2019s victory and Britain\u2019s Brexit vote, promise further social and political eruptions in 2017 and beyond \u2013 and China\u2019s leaders will not escape unscathed.<\/p>\n

\"www-usnews\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More turmoil ahead for the US, Asia and the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":13704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[132,148,124],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-china","8":"category-international","9":"category-news"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Trump effect - China Worker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2016\/12\/05\/13702\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Trump effect - 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