Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)
WikiLeaks – TRANSCEND Media Service
Today, 13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. The WikiLeaks release of the text comes ahead of the decisive TPP Chief Negotiators summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013. The chapter published by WikiLeaks is perhaps the most controversial chapter of the TPP due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents. Significantly, the released text includes the negotiation positions and disagreements between all 12 prospective member states.
The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP.
PLEASE CONTINUE READING IN THE ORIGINAL – wikileaks.org
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Nov 2013.
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[…] talking about the appalling Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, a partial draft of which WikiLeaks has just released. This treaty has been negotiated in secret meetings dominated […]
[…] Nov 2013 – WikiLeaks has released the draft text of a chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, a multilateral free-trade treaty currently being negotiated in secret by 12 Pacific Rim […]
Why is the negotiation for the TPP in secret? It is because if people of the negotiating countries know the details of the on-going discussion of the negotiation, it is highly likely that the negotiation of the TPP will be failed. The TPP is a newly proposed US-led economic dominant system (in the Asia-Pacific region), in which the only one participating country (= the United States) will be the permanent winner and the rest of the participating countries will be the permanent losers.
The United States has almost achieved the domination of the whole world by its overwhelming military powers and by its computer networking system. The Big Brother/Uncle Sam is watching virtually all people of all countries in the world (including American citizens as well) through its computer surveillance networking system and is ready to beat any country by its extraordinary military powers.
It seems that the next goal of the United States is to put the economy of those countries under the US domination and strict control. It can be foreseen that those countries in the Asia-Pacific region are to continue thriving in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, however, it is can be foreseen that the US economy will be entering into the long term and undeviating decline. Therefore, it may be necessary for the United States to establish a new set of rules of the economic game, in which the victory of the United States will always be guaranteed. The name of this game is “The United States, the Permanent and Exclusive Winner!”
One of the tactics of the negotiation of the United States for the TPP is “to give an inch and get a mile”. It can be imagined that the United States is promising the governments of the negotiating countries that the US will support these governments (and politicians) if these governments will agree to participate in the TPP. Which politicians of these countries wish to lose their status after the refusal of their participation in the TPP? Which politicians of these countries can refuse the possible and future (political, military or any other type of) support from the United States? As such, the secrecy of the negotiation for the TPP benefits both the United States and the governments and politicians of these negotiating countries.
But, is that how democratic countries should behave? When the voice of people — especially that of socially and economically small and weak people — is neglected, a new authoritarianism might begin.
As mentioned above, the United States will be the primary permanent winners of the TPP. The governments and politicians of the negotiating countries might also be the secondary permanent winners. However, socially and economically small and weak people of these negotiating countries will the permanent losers. So, that the TPP, of the US and the governments and politicians of these negotiating countries, by the US and these governments and politicians, and for the US and these governments and politicians, will not perish from the Asia-Pacific region. There is no Abraham Lincoln as to the TPP negotiation.
Well, they might not hear this small voice but let me dare to say: “Play by the rules, but do not play by the unfair and undemocratic rules. Play by the fair and democratic rules.”