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Mega free-trade deal a lifeline for Australia-China relations
- Barrin92 6y agoHaving China, Japan and South Korea in single trade agreement really is pretty remarkable, imagine that a hundred years ago. Given the uncertainties right now it seems pretty positive that at least in Asia there's still a relatively broad commitment to free trade.
- howmayiannoyyou 6y agoIf you think this agreement represents "free trade" then you don't understand how these things work.
- person_of_color 6y agogo on...
- phkahler 6y agoLet's use NAFTA as an example. Free trade between the US, Canada, and Mexico should be something you can explain (ELI5) in one or two pages. A lawyer might extend that to 10 to 20 pages to make it formal using legalese. The actual agreement ran over 700 pages and included carve outs for all sorts of things for many different companies and industries. It was a trade agreement. Maybe there were some "free" parts in it too but it did not establish "free trade" in general.
- andrepd 6y agoThe world is a complicated messy place. A newspaper webpage has how many hundreds of pages of js code? 700 pages of legalese "source code" for a free trade agreement between ~500 million people doesn't seem that bad.
- vmception 6y ago*1.5 billion?
- cambalache 6y agoNafta
- wenc 6y agoI believe parent is talking about NAFTA (or USMCA) countries. The population covered under the agreement is 493 mil.
- hartator 6y agoOr a huge room for corruption.
- wwweston 6y agoWish I could give this 100 upvotes. HN of all places should be a place where people understand that domain models matter, that precisely specifying them for either purposes of automation or legal formalization is going to involve significant descriptive effort, possibly even volume, and even apparently simple things -- from trade and health care down to how the arithmetic you think you're used to -- have a lot of complexity underneath them.
- vmception 6y agoSounds like something worth reading before the general public understands it :) I haven't been this excited since I read the entire CARES Act
- cmroanirgo 6y agoThere is a vast diversity of differences in these countries, from gdp to population density and cost of living. Every time my Australian government has signed "free trade" agreements it has meant massive sector decline in different clusters of industry, ranging from steel production to primary industry (food and veggies). Eg. My family's orchard no longer grows oranges, nor kiwi fruit, nor other exotic fruit due to "free trade". The local supermarket chains (coles and woolworths) both decimated these industries by forcing farmers to suddenly sell at Asian market cost. My whole area used to be renowned for oranges... But there are all but a small handful of tiny orchards now. Because of fruit fly, the other owners, including my family, had to destroy the trees. So, there's no chance of ever returning the property to it's former orchard status. A secondary effect of "free trade" is that the above mentioned supermarkets started buying the land of the farmers they'd driven to the wall, and put in "manager farmers" who do not look after the land near as much as a family owned property does. Eg. Excessive use of pesticides, ignoring noxious weeds (a cost saving), use of temporary & often overseas workers. All profits that used to go to local industries (eg hardware stores & other shops) are now sent out from centralised warehouses. To compound the problem, these "free trade" partners now also purchase the land, so even the profits now go overseas. China is now a very large landowner of Australia, and have long term 99yr leases on the ports of Melbourne and Darwin. So, personally, I'm not a fan of anything "free trade".
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoA definition of "free trade" that excludes the kinds of things free trade treaties typically do just doesn't seem very helpful for describing the world.
- echelon 6y agoWhat does this mean for the United States? Have countries abandoned the idea of uniting against China? Was this Trump's doing? What about TPP?
- tuatoru 6y agoTPP was replaced by the "Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership" (CPTPP) between Mexico, Canada, Australia, NZ, Japan, Singapore and (if they ratified it) Viet Nam, Malaysia, Brunei Dar es-Salaam, Peru and Chile. This is some of the same countries, but lots of other ones too (all the members of ASEAN). India was in this new one until last year when they got cold feet about reducing tariffs on milk and meat products. The main points are standardising goods classifications, paperwork, and procedures at point of import. This simplifies things a lot for exporters. There is some loosening of restrictions on services exports (I guess things like insurance, finance, business services, software) also. For the United States, it continues a slow marginalisation in world trade. Unless the US harmonises its rules with everyone else, it'll be too much bother to try to export there. Uniting against China... Here's an accurate if unsparing description of the US: "a crisis-wracked, oil-rich, nuclear-armed country in which an aging would-be dictator for life tries to stave off replacement by his popular successor amid large protests, while heavily armed groups roam the ethnically divided interior". China looks like a model of stability and calm by comparison. Edit: I forgot to attribute the quote: Kenyan comedian Gathara.
- xref 6y ago> Here's an accurate if unsparing description of the US: "a crisis-wracked, oil-rich, nuclear-armed country in which an aging would-be dictator for life tries to stave off replacement by his popular successor amid large protests, while heavily armed groups roam the ethnically divided interior". >China looks like a model of stability and calm by comparison. Isn’t Xi effectively dictator for life now, and not simply a “would be” like in the US? Doesn’t China have the 4th largest nuclear stockpile? (US is #2) Doesn’t China have the 12th largest proven oil reserves? (US is #10) Do the tens of thousands arrested/wounded/dead in Hong Kong count as “crisis wracked”? Doesn’t China ethnically divide itself between the Han vs everyone else, culturally erasing groups like the Tibetans or simply rounding up Uyghurs to fill concentration camps?
- CountSessine 6y agoIt’s interesting that even within the context of this agreement, there’s a question as to whether or not China will honour their obligations under the agreement with respect to their bilateral relationship with Australia. I don’t think that this agreement means very much.
- threeseed 6y agoThis is the key part here. China has been retaliating recently against Australia since they chose to stand up to them over COVID-19, HK, South China Sea etc. And they've done this through sneaky but legal means e.g. suspending wine imports by accusing them of dumping, magically finding pests in a range of imports and labelling Australia as a dangerous place to live in order to discourage Chinese students. So having a FTA in place doesn't necessarily mean much.
- nmlnn 6y agoIn fact China and Australia already had a bilateral FTA between them that came into force in 2015. Pieces of paper are meaningless to the CCP.
- snowwindwaves 6y agoCanadian exports to China were also suspended due to allegations of "pests"
- karmasimida 6y agoI think people have some misunderstanding of FTA. FTA doesn't disallow anti-dumping and tariff punishment. Trump admin had slapped huge tariff on Canada/Mexico on automobile/steel/logs, for example, when the NAFTA is still in place. The other country can choose to slap counter tariff if they see fit, but they can nothing about each other's choice.
- makomk 6y agoThat's the trouble. The supposed anti-dumping measures seem to have very little to do with any actual dumping and everything to do with Australian politicians daring to criticise China - but because China is a totalitarian dictatorship with no free press, it's impossible to prove it. So letting countries like China enter into FTAs effectively gives them more economic leverage to force democracies like Australia to fall in line, since the whole point is to increase the amount of trade and economic dependency between the countries.
- danaos 6y agoThe balance of power is shifting.
- nemo44x 6y agoWith Biden elected I’ll be interested in seeing if the USA rejoins the TPP agreement. It was negotiated under Obama and Biden was a supporter at the time. Of course Congress is the tricky part. Trump pulled the USA out as he was essentially a Democrat in terms of trade protectionism - a very odd position for a Republican. Congress is split but I could see the Republican Senate passing it. The question is will enough a Democrats in the House agree to it? Likely a very divisive issue between the Liberal (maybe yes) and Progressive (no) sides.
- moralsupply 6y agoI'm not taking sides here, and this comment is not supposed to start a flame war, but let's remember that Biden is not confirmed as the president yet.
- karmasimida 6y agoTPP is DOA. It has been demonized by the conservatives, or anti-globalists from both parties, here in US. With PA/WI/MI being the king maker in past 2 elections in US, I dare any president would go that far to agonize the voters in those states, even though it might be strategically right choice to stabilize US's influence in Asia.
- nemo44x 6y agoThat a great point about WI/PA/MI - NAFTA was not great for that region in particular. I do wonder if there’s enough of a bi-partisan coalition (east coast wealthy liberals, west coast states that would benefit, Texas conservatives, etc) to push it. But you’re right that both sides see those states as strategically important and it’s doubtful Biden would want to approve it since that could be poison next election.
- j8hn 6y ago
- aeternum 6y agoIt will soon be much more than 30% of GDP. The US seems to have forgotten that the economy is not a zero-sum game.
- CountSessine 6y agoEvery one of these economies has a rapidly aging population that desperately needs a positive balance of trade and export to maintain GDP growth. Every one of them would give up this agreement in a second for untariffed access to the US consumer market, which none of them have anymore.
- curiousgal 6y agoGiven the US' attack on immigration, it too will have a rapidly aging population.
- CountSessine 6y agoI know - the irony! Perhaps the only reason that the US has so many millennials is that so many people come to the US undocumented, skirting the dumpster-fire immigration and visa system. Without those millennials, the US would be in the same pickle.
- danbolt 6y agoCertainly immigration and not to do with being the children of baby boomers!
- viraptor 6y agoUS has estimated 11M of unauthorised people. Let's say 25-34yo are millennials - that's 3M of them. Same age bracket has 45M US residents. I'm not sure the 3M are making that much of a difference. (Although it's higher than I expected)
- CountSessine 6y ago
- mimikatz 6y agoWe had this set up for America under TPP, which Trump rejected and Hillary claimed she would as well after being pushed that way from the left.
- tengbretson 6y agoDo we really seem to be lacking in imported shit from Asia?
- j8hn 6y agoHow would TPP help the US long-term?
- qaq 6y agoEastasia, Oceania, Eurasia ...
- contingencies 6y ago+1 Insightful. For those who are unfamiliar with the reference see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-Fou...
- cute_boi 6y agothe way India backed off from such trade agreement makes me worries.
- nitrobeast 6y agoworried about india or the agreement?
- howmayiannoyyou 6y ago10% of the 30% is China's GDP, and another 10% relies on Chinese inputs for their GDP outputs. So, the title might just as accurately read: 10% of global GDP accepted Chinese hegemony. Don't believe me? Ask yourself how free "free" is a "free trade" agreement when one side: - Has a per capita fraction of the environmental regulations/costs. - Has a per capita fraction of the social program costs. - Has a per capita fraction of the labor/union costs. - Has a per capita fraction of the regulatory/I.P. costs. - Provides tax incentives for export. - Manipulates its currency to undercut global pricing. - Has no foreign bribe prohibitions. The world's one and only attempt to check Chinese economic domination died when Trump lost his reelection bid. It is now a race to curry favor with Beijing. This post will be downvoted into oblivion because it says thing people don't want said and that others don't want to believe.
- threeseed 6y agoTrump had a lot of rhetoric over China but was weak on action. Pulling out of TPP was a massive geo-political and economic win for China. And nothing was done about widespread IP theft, trade imbalances, data sovereignty concerns or the use of trade to influence other country's policies.
- ben_w 6y agoAmerica has a bigger economy than China, and the EU was (pre-Brexit) roughly equal to China. To the extent that I expect China to dominate the global economy for the next century or so, it is because I expect others to choose to fight amongst themselves instead of choosing to build and grow, and not because of China itself.
- bananabiscuit 6y agoNah, China will dominate because we the western world have at least some scruples and decided that economic growth must not come with complete disregard for worker safety or environmental concerns. But for some reason, if we just pay China to slave drive their people and pollute on our behalf, then it’s ok. Please tell me why you think I’m wrong.
- H8crilA 6y agoWhat does this mean in practice? They will not have tariffs on everything/some things? Does this cap tariffs? Does this uncap capital flows, especially crossing the mainland China border? Does this cap FX exchange rates? Does this make establishing cross-border corporate structures easier? Is there protection for cross-border trade routes for physical goods? Is there deregulation in terms of online services (things like "we'll let you store our data")? Is there agreement on "quality of goods" for things like food or pharmaceuticals? etc. The article explains nothing, other than saying "yeah they agreed on something".
- nabla9 6y agoIt's significantly less substantial than CPTPP is. There is little of harmonization except clarifying some rules of origin issues https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/roi_e/roi_info_e.htm https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/roi_e/roi_info_e.htm It contains some tariff removals. Tariffs have lost importance relative to other issues because they are already relatively low. The world has gone trough nine rounds of GATT and is on 10th. I think this signals that ASEAN countries are willing to play China and the US against each other in trade.
- stevofolife 6y agoPoor Taiwan
- Animats 6y agoNot including Taiwan, of course.
- LittlePeter 6y agoI genuinely wonder if Taiwan can claim to be part of this agreement? Claiming so would implicitly acknowledge they are China, which they would be unwilling to do I think.
- eikenberry 6y agoI thought a large part of the contention was that Taiwan did consider themselves to be China. The real Chinese government anyways, in exile.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoThe dynamic has started to flip in recent years. There's a large and growing faction in Taiwanese politics that doesn't identify as Chinese at all.
- CountSessine 6y agoThey gave up that claim a few years ago.
- fmajid 6y agoThe amazing thing is there is next to no coverage in the US press (as of right now, there is one article in the NY Times, from 2017). Trump threw out TPP, which was designed to isolate China, and in doing so managed to do the opposite, isolating the US economically from the entire Asia-Pacific region. This is going to massively favor China in its fight for economic dominance with the US for the next decades, and probably the greatest failure of policy in the last 50 years, yes, even worse than the Iraq war. India is the other great loser.
- repsilat 6y agoThere have been a few articles in the WSJ in the last couple of weeks. (Funnily enough, a Google search for `wsj rcep` turns up mostly articles written in Novembers-- Nov 2020, Nov 2019, Nov 2016...) Maybe this sort of thing doesn't interest the readers of the Times so much?
- j8hn 6y ago"Isolating the US economically from the entire Asia-Pacific region." Is this true? The US has a free trade agreement with Korea, recently signed a very limited free trade agreement with Japan with the expectation that it will be expanded. Also Vietnam has risen three spots to #8 on the list of trading partners with the US.
- fomine3 6y agoI'm Japanese and I've never heard such deal is going to be signed until very recently. I admit that I've not read news eagerly but news articles / TV news shows that related to RCEP is really few. When TPP deal was going to signed, there were many news and discussions. I expect that deal with China and Korea should make massive discussion in Japan, but very few maybe due to covid.
- dirtyid 6y agoRCEP was negotiated in almost complete secrecy, you can find articles about the process from a few years back.
- peter303 6y agoThe US position is based upon what could re-elect Trump and not what is best for the US. Hopefully that nightmare is over soon.
- j8hn 6y agoWhat is best for the US as far as trade?