trade – Page 7 – Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, November 21, 2016

With TPP’s immanent floundering in the Pacific, China attempts to step into America’s shoes. But, those are big shoes to fill. As big of a deal as Asia thinks itself to be, any trade deal needs to include the Americas or it really isn’t worth writing headlines about—or even the agreement papers. China’s current proposal to replace TPP with a pure-Asia trade agreement is called “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)”—again, with an introspective worldview evident in the name, not identifying which “region” is involved because the region is presumed by those in it. RCEP won’t even make a dent in the ocean.

Instead, Trump still dominates the headlines. Japanese President, Shinzo Abe thinks Trump is “trustworthy”. He met with the president elect at Trump Tower.

Other than Trump and trade, the rest of the news reset itself to stories questioning China’s economy. Metal is up for suspicious reasons. Apple isn’t that great and wasn’t going to be that great anyway. And, China is already spying on us through their cell phones. It almost seems that newspapers agree with Trump about having more mobile phones made in the USA.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 25, 2016

SymphonyJuly 25, 2016October 17, 2016

The words “China” and “tariffs” are appearing in headlines together again. Cambodia is seen as a Chinese puppet in ASEAN. And, one dissenting opinion from Forbes claims that tariffs are only about consumers, not about jobs and whole economies. Contrary to China’s unspoken messages, Beijing asks for more economic cooperation, but Europe is stealing the limelight.

If China were truly interested in global economic growth, they should move their shadow away from the economic shipping lanes in the South China sea. But, that idea doesn’t exactly come to mind to the Communist worldview, which presumes that success is bestowed rather than sown and reaped.

Taiwan’s order of 50 some amphibious vehicles from the US has been delayed until 2020, three and a half years. Yet, the US called on Taiwan to create a vehicle for a lunar landing. One would think that Taiwan might build 50 some lunar landing vehicles for Taiwanese use under water, especially since the specs should not be as complex, but that was not reported. Perhaps the US could divert NASA resources to Taiwan’s security to ensure that the lunar vehicle supplier is not crushed by an invasion from China, but that was not reported either.