(8) To obtain a strategic dominant position from nearness to farness
Chapter 4 The Intervention by Powers and the Impact to the Region
4.2 The Trans-Pacific Partnership（TPP）
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The United States was paying attention to the role of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), and pushing the LMI. Each side endeavored to win over the Indochina Peninsula countries under its own mechanism.
As mentioned in the previous sections, the strategic location of the Indochina Peninsula is very important. It is the boundary between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is also China’s gateway to the southwest. In the region are mostly economic emerging countries, with the potential of investment and trade. China has been actively using economic, trade and political influence to win over these emerging countries, and the United States was certainly worried that the region would become China’s sphere of influence, or even it will be excluded from the region by China. Therefore, the United States dare not ignore. It would adjust the strategic focus and continue to strengthen the influence in the Indochina Peninsula in order to contain China’s force by deploying the strength at the front line.
The South China Sea near the Indochina Peninsula is a region where the competition and conflict between the United States and China were more intense. The United States or China took strategy to consolidate the relations with countries in the Indochina Peninsula in order to win support in the South China Sea issue. In this respect, China seems to operate well.
4.2 The Trans-Pacific Partnership（TPP）
4.2.1 Background
The OBOR initiative is a big strategic thinking of economic aspirations. In addition to building interconnection and interchange, interregional economic and trade exchanges and financial systems are also important elements. In the time of globalization and prevalent regional trade, the global market was
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guided by a number of important international free trade organizations. When discussing the inter-regional economic and trade competition, it may not just refer to challenge from a single country, but the impact from one or several trade agreements. For example, the most regarded challenge to China’s regional economic and trade development is the TPP led by the United States and Japan.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), launched by the members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), was a multilateral free trade agreement initiated in 2002. The purpose is to promote trade liberalization in the Asia-Pacific region. TPP was founded first by New Zealand, Singapore, Chile and Brunei and then constantly upgraded. The importance rapidly increased especially after the United States joined. In fact, TPP was not simply about trade liberalization. The United States was actively participating, attempting to use the establishment of TPP to offset Chinese growing economic and trade influence. In particular, China has also led a number of trade cooperation mechanisms, such as OBOR and RCEP. The two major powers inevitably show a competitive situation in the regional multilateral trade agreements and rules of the system. About the issue of who would dominate regional economy, it was believed that the two countries would not be reluctant to concede.
The United States joined the TPP negotiations in 2008, and President Obama promoted positively in 2009, making the speech in Japan in the topic of
“Pivot to Asia”. Since then, TPP became the core strategy of Asia-Pacific Rebalancing.9 The reasons that the United States actively participated in TPP may be because the financial turmoil in the second half of 2008 led to economic difficulties for the United States, the war in Iraq gradually ended, and the rise of Chinese political economy. The United States needed to transfer the focus to the Asia-Pacific. The main points of Pivot to Asia are like what the former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “it is not only about the
9 杜巧霞與劉亮君(2013)，歐巴馬政府貿易政策之調整、轉變與對我國之啟示。貿易政策論叢，
20，pp1-34。
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interests of Asia, but also about the interests of the United States”.10 And TPP is the tool to make the United States return to Asia and to ensure that the Asian economic development process would be in line with the interests of the United States.
According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, TPP is the first regional trade agreement covering the Asia-Pacific region. The population of the member countries is about 800 million, accounting for 11% of the global population. The total regional GDP is about 28 trillion US dollars, accounting for 36% of global value, higher than the EU and the North American Free Trade Area.11 However, the negotiations haven’t been conducted smoothly and Obama’s administration has not got the full support from the Congress.
4.2.2 The TPP going feeble
The US-dominated TPP was designed to promote multilateral trade and investment agreements for economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region. It was an important strategic tool for the United States to reshape its economic influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Its impact was not only in a huge economic scale, but also in the political consideration of making trade partners to further establish its own bloc. In addition to the aspect of economy, the US could also take dominance in political, military and security aspects by taking advantage of partners. It can be viewed as the transition from the development of “Geo-economics” to the “Geopolitics”.
China, with the increasing economic influence and continuous threat is the one the United States wants to contend against. Although the United States did not seem to oppose China to join TPP exteriorly, the high-standard content of
10 宋鎮照(2013 年 2 月)，美國重返亞洲的企圖與策略：霸權地位保衛戰。海峽評論，參照：
https://www.haixia-info.com/articles/6360.html
11 經濟部國際貿易局經貿資訊網。2017 年 3 月 8 日參照：http://www.tpptrade.tw/intro1.aspx
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the agreement in fact made China difficult to join.12 China certainly knew the US intention and endeavored to build its own sphere of influence.
The five countries in the Indochina Peninsula in our study are also the region won over by the United States and China. About TPP, in addition to Vietnamese official signing, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos expressed interest or started discussion. As to RCEP, the five countries in the Indochina Peninsula are all participant countries. TPP seems to be an important tool to contain China and offset its forces, and can be used to suppress the ambition of China’s OBOR or RCEP. However, only the successful promotion of TPP can lead to the strength. The 16 members of RCEP differ in economic development and political position, which made it difficult to reach a consensus. However, the promotion of TPP was even more difficult. The new US President Trump in January 2017 formally signed an administrative order to withdraw from the TPP. Although the allies persuaded the United States to stay, Trump still chose to fulfill the campaign promises and considered the withdrawal of TPP is beneficial to US labors.
The TPP without the United States began to become rudderless and the influence will be greatly weakened. Other countries may not have the ability or want to fight against China. Considering the reality of regional economic and trade, they can only rethink other ways. Signing another agreement by the other TPP members, signing FTA individually among TPP members, or even turning to RCEP pushed by China may be an option. But it can be imagined that without strong containment by TPP, China’s political and economic influence in the Asia-Pacific region will be more powerful.
12 Gordon G. Chang (2015, Oct 6). TPP vs. RCEP: America and China Battle for Control of Pacific Trade. The National Interest. Retrieved from:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/tpp-vs-rcep-america-china-battle-control-pacific-trade-14021
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