Pages

Friday, May 27, 2022

The presumptiousness of an editorial board can be a surprise. [U0DATE: But with it, you can learn things.]

 With no indication of having contacted anybody at the State Deprtment, and citing only one reach out to a Brookings scholar, the "editorial board" of Strib opined about Biden's recent unambiguous statement about defense of Taiwan. There is no indication of contact with any Taiwanese representative, nor with Biden staff, prior to publishing. 

From the item:

Biden's clarity on Taiwan is risky - "Strategic ambiguity" has long been effective in U.S.-China relations. - By Editorial Board Star Tribune - May 26, 2022 

"Strategic ambiguity" is what U.S. diplomats call America's policy on Taiwan and China. The strategy is to keep the peace by maintaining ambiguity over the degree the U.S. would go to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.

To date, that intentional vagueness has met its objective of keeping Taiwan from declaring formal independence, which would incense China, and from China invading what it considers a renegade province.

On Monday, however, President Joe Biden was unambiguous about U.S. policy. During a stop in Japan, Biden was asked by a reporter, "Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?"

"Yes," Biden answered simply, later adding: "That's the commitment we made."

Publishing "likely" in the next paragraph in the absence of contact with State or White House staff hangs "likely" on a few locals, together, guessing, disinclined to pin something down.

He was likely referring to the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which actually does not commit the U.S. to militarily defend Taiwan, but to provide self-defense capabilities. Biden apparently believes otherwise in a view that's also shared by several respected foreign policy experts.

But Biden's approach, if that indeed reflects U.S. policy, may not be as effective a strategy, according to Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Hass, an expert in East Asia, told an editorial writer in an e-mail interview that "there are few issues in the world where words matter more than on the question of war in the Taiwan Strait" and that "in this respect, the inconsistencies in the Biden administration's responses to questions about whether the United States would intervene in a cross-Strait conflict is troubling.

"America's abiding interest is in preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," Hass continued. "Preserving this objective requires standing in the way of the two paths that could lead to conflict, either a Chinese military invasion or efforts by Taiwan to declare de jure independence. The more that President Biden locks the U.S. into a specific response to a future hypothetical conflict, the less room for maneuver he leaves for himself or his successors."

China, Hass said, already assumes U.S. intervention if it attacks Taiwan. Accordingly, he believes that "there is not deterrent value for any U.S. president to say out loud that the U.S. would intervene in any future conflict. There is risk, however, that such a statement could prompt Beijing to take visible responses to register displeasure."

[...] 

"He believes," as used by Strib's editors means the one guy they contacted by email at Brookings, is a good usage. Reliance is on one guy's belief. And there is an unstated presumption that deterrence value is the only, or overriding factor to weigh. The editors say in a clear statement that much of the editorial is grounded on one outsider's belief in conjunction with board biases,  if any, among Strib editors. Yes, one beltway pundit said this and that, but so what? 

The editorial goes further:

More constructively, Biden used his trip to introduce a 13-nation pact called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. Along with the U.S. and regional leaders Japan, India, South Korea and Australia, the agreement includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam (but notably, not Taiwan). Together the 13 countries represent about 40% of the global economy.

But unlike Biden's unambiguous statement on Taiwan, there's more ambiguity to the new arrangement, as it's designed to address issues like supply-chain resilience, digital trade, corruption and clean energy. Unlike a more muscular free-trade agreement, it does not address issues of market access, which will make it not only less economically meaningful but less of a geopolitical counterweight to China.

Had Biden really wanted to blunt Beijing's increasing influence, he would have advocated for the pact his former boss, President Barack Obama, negotiated, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which went forward without the U.S. after it was irresponsibly demonized during the 2016 campaign by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

[...]

Get that. Based on a local consultation among "editorial board" folks, TPP was "right" and both party candidates running on a policy against it was "wrong." 

Not attributing the Brookings agent a role in such judgment suggests it was the editors alone calling that shot. 

Who are they to second guess better people? There was much dislike among a host of union people for TPP, and its secrecy in negotiations and ultimate content was galling, while some fretted over U.S. sovereignty arguably being subjugated to dispute resolution mechanisms among corporations, not courts, where policy could be set outside of an accord among national governments via an accord among involved commercial corporations. Presumably the two candidates consulted a number of advisors, not a lone individual, (if that Brookings scholar was consulted about the TPP subpart of the editorial, we do not know).

Who are they to judge TPP as better than a looser trade understanding? Their approach - In one case, wrong to be unambiguous, in another, too ambiguous. Moreover, second guessing in saying the last (failed) TPP idea seems better to us, with no basis explained for thinking it better, and also further characterizing disagreement over the wisdom of candidate judgment of its terms and conditions as "demonization?" Come on.

They wrap up:

Biden is right to not let the long-delayed "pivot" to Asia become derailed due to the Ukraine crisis. But "strategic ambiguity" has maintained peace in the region — peace that can be undone if not carefully maintained.

Strategic ambiguity was policy prior to abandonment of the Afghan mistake, prior to use of surrogates in Syria, and prior to a firm line, arming Ukraine but declining to engage militarily in the Russian - Ukranian situation. To ignore that Taiwanese leaders might per such recent historical facts yearn for something definite, a reassurance in light of those foreign policy facts of U.S. conduct, was the gravest mistake this editorial board made. 

The editorial never mentioned Taiwan's uncertainty and possibly its greater current cause for trepidation and need for reassurance as a factor. 

The editorial instead dismissed any grounded Taiwanese cause for enhanced trepidation out of hand. That dismissal of concern is strange in light of the U.S. track record in recent times. Taiwanese leaders should be suffering enhanced uncertainty of how supportive our nation would be and remain, by how others were addressed in recent events; together with how in four year's time Donald John Trump disastrously deviated foreign policy with the notion he knew better, (much as this editoral board believes it knows better). With that combination as recent history a policy believed by the editors to have been best before that simply might no longer be best. So explain the favoring of continuing "strategic ambiguity" in current context, please. The editors surprisingly declined to publish any acknowledgement much less mentioning and resolving of how recent history fits their thinking. 

C- 

__________UPDATE_________

Strib does link to Brooking's summary of Ryan Hass' background. He is learned and experienced. He served in the Obama administration, on China and Asian regional policy, and likely had a role in TPP negotiations. It is almost inconceivable that he would not have had a role.

Trump did not keep him on his National Security Council, and it appears Biden declined to add him to the Biden team. Perhaps Haas felt favorable to his prior work and policy efforts, and had a role in influencing Strib editors' view of TPP. Perhaps not. Strib incredibly declined to clarify such an obviously relevant factor. They maintained their "strategic ambiguity" about any Haas input into TPP opinion they published. We just don't know.

One further point. The understanding here is that TPP declined to impose climate and environmental uniformity among affected/affiliated nations. Others might not have needed to cover costs of climate/environment diligence comparable to operations in the States, when corporations located operations in other nations. 

We don't know. The secrecy with which TPP was shrouded blocked out public awareness and discourse. But whether location of corporate facilities might have been biased in favor of other nations over location in the U.S., with U.S. labor, would have been nice to know. 

Such knowledge might even, with many people, influence opinion of how good or bad, superior or inferior, TPP terms and conditions were, relative to leaving "strategic ambiguity" in a present, preliminary Biden administration alliance pact.

FURTHER: Labor skepticism and outright opposition to TPP was real. To consider the common dissatisfaction of both 2016 candidates with TPP as "demonization" when either or both candidates might have weighed labor outlooks in setting strategy aimed toward gaining a majority of votes in the contest; that seems a reach.

It would have been wrong for one aiming to represent the people to not weigh things the people might favor or dislike. That's common sense. Not demonization. Anyone can see that is so. 

What insiders may have thought (or still think about TPP) may well have differed from popular opinion, to the extent popular opinion could form under the questionable level of secrecy with which TPP matters were handled by Obama's people. 

Corporations had access. Regular people were kept in the dark. Almost as if corporations wrote the deal, regardless of what popular reaction might have been. 

BOTTOM LINE: There was cause aplenty for Trump and Clinton to have cautiously regarded TPP as a 2016 election issue. Reasonable cause is not demonization. Calling it that is a failed, biased, narrow point of view.

_________FURTHER UPDATE_______

It was error in excerpting to omit this second to last paragraph of the editorial:

"China has sought aggressively to sell the idea that the U.S. is an anxious, declining power retreating into greater isolation, while China is the new core of Asia's economic growth story," Hass said. "If the U.S. were to return to its seat at the trade table in Asia through CPTPP [the renamed Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership], it would render obsolete China's efforts to present America as a fading power and itself as the growth engine of the future."

It was not mere error, but manifest error to omit that.

This "CPTPP" a/k/a " Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership" beast needs Sunshine (the greatest disinfectant).

There should be a major public outcry -

CPTPP. Who 'dat? What 'dat? Why 'dat?

Rational explanation and analysis of this CPTPP proposal, free of demonization, but without any pom pom squad diverting attention, will be in everbody's best interest.

Prior to the 2022 midterm voting, labor should be consulted to learn the full nature of the proposal in order to publicize express outlooks which might aid in informing the voting public. Hiding things under a hat (or within the closing sentence of a second-to-last editorial paragraph) is never good conduct.

To duly aid a beginning of Crabgrass reader awareness:

Wikipedia.

Websearch.

Enjoy.

And a closing apology to Crabgrass readers. In among all the shootings and auto or motorcycle death coverage Strib's featured and published I overlooked their parallel and extensive coverage of this overriding long-term policy issue affecting the lives of US, the children, and the children's children. Affecting the ongoing economy of our nation into future decades, indeed, into the next century. My bad.