Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Council on Foreign Relations’ Grand Strategy: China Must Be Defeated, The TPP Is Essential to Undermining China

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Council on Foreign Relations’ Grand Strategy: China Must Be Defeated, The TPP Is Essential to Undermining China

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Global Research.

I've spent too much time this morning looking at various articles which suggest that the directors in the ruling class are engaged in a debate about what to do about China, and the trend of the debate appears to favor the position expressed in a lengthy exposition issued by the Council of Foreign Relations, a primary ruling class organization, entitled "Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China". I was reviewing this document along with several others of a similar nature when I came across this article by Zuesse which I believe adequately addresses the main themes of the document. (The similar articles I was reviewing are posted here and here.)

It is clear from both my reading and Zuesse's that the TPP is an important component of this containment strategy toward China, and thus we can expect that "fast-tracking" it through Congress will be pursued very aggressively. What is striking is that the authors of this document criticize Obama administration policies as not being sufficiently aggressive!

The report’s “Recommendations for U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China” urges Congress to “Deliver on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, … as a geoeconomic answer to growing Chinese economic power and geopolitical coercion in Asia,” but it fails to mention that the Obama Administration has already embodied the authors’ viewpoint and objectives in the TPP, which Obama created, and which cuts China out; it could hardly be a better exemplar of their agenda.

This article lends support to the argument I advanced in my commentary of a recent posting entitled "China and the New World Order":

Today, we are seeing some people (such as Kissinger) in the ruling capitalist classes who realize the inherent dangers of trying to dominate China, that in this nuclear age a war would be far too devastating to contemplate, and thus they would like to reach an accommodation with Chinese and Russian leaders. Capitalist ruling classes are not monolithic with regard to strategies for enhancing their wealth and power. There are many others, often in the ranks of neoconservatives, who think otherwise. They are pursuing policies of aggressive containment with both Russia and China. From all appearances, I think that they are the dominant faction among the Empire's directors.