Deal Reached on Fast-Track Authority for TPP

[Beet]

If anybody here should be upset, it is me Because if anybody is going to get hurt, it is Mexico: we are in a direct competition with China, and we are going to loose much of the privilleged access given by NAFTA.

But I am happy.

China is not a part of this deal, thankfully. In fact, I think the main reason Obama is for it is that it draws America's East Asian allies into a closer multilateral cooperation with us, while the economic consequences are a wash. He wants to deter China from trying to push the U.S. out of the region.

[Beet]

I'll have to admit, the way some progressive wave "CHINA" like a red flag makes me uncomfortable, and seems out of step with the friendly attitude that progressives take towards other countries traditionally seen as potentially hostile to the U.S.

[Beet]

I'll have to admit, the way some progressive wave "CHINA" like a red flag makes me uncomfortable, and seems out of step with the friendly attitude that progressives take towards other countries traditionally seen as potentially hostile to the U.S.

I ask at the risk of driving this thread off topic, but why should left-of-center Americans have any affinity toward China?

Well, it's a country of millions of largely poor people of color lifting itself out of poverty, and the left has generally been for that. If you can't have affinity for that, maybe you can at least see that when slapping the words "China" or "Chinese" on anything becomes a sort of epithet on itself (and this happens on both the right and left), it veers into the direction of othering and racism that has long been the dark side of this country's relationship with the Far East.

[Beet]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It's absurd to trivialize political rhetoric with xenophobic undertones as "feeling get hurt." This is what I mean. At least a vocal part of the left will speak out against this sort of thing when it comes to Muslims, but then perpetuate it when it comes to Chinese.

[Beet]

Thanks Averroes. I do think the Obama administration's China policy has been a bit short-sighted. He's gotten some things right, but he doesn't seem to have much of an overall strategy, and seems to be drifting into a policy of vague containment. If so, it's somewhat understandable given China's increasingly hard-line actions, but the administration ought to find some way to articulate the policy and define what the end goal is. If he wants to push TPP, it would make more sense in the context of a larger East Asia policy.