CHINA DEDEV

**NEG
 1NC
Collapse is inevitable and the transition solves biodiversity collapse which is
inevitable in a world of the plan – tech can’t solve – we already answered your 2AC
Trainer, 5-10-16 – (Ted, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Work, University of New South
Wales, “Sustainability – The Simpler Way perspective,” Reslieience,
http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2016/07_July/Sustainability%20The%20Simpler%
20Way%20Perspective.pdf,//BR/)
Firstly let’s set the scene; The deteriorating state of the planet. The resource base and environmental conditions on which the

present levels of global production and consumption are built are obviously deteriorating at an
alarming rate. Few if any would not be aware of this but it is important to briefly remind ourselves before focusing
on how impossible it would be for this base to sustain affluence and growth for all. A glance at the situation
reveals that resources are becoming more scarce and costly, including energy, productive

land, minerals, food, fish, wood and water, and ecosystems are being severely
damaged. We are losing species, forests, land, coral reefs, grasslands and fisheries at
accelerating rates. A sixth era of massive biodiversity loss appears to have begun. We are
polluting the planet with excess carbon dioxide, nitrogen and many toxic chemicals. The mass of big animals on
the planet has declined sharply in recent decades, probably down by 90% in the sea. The World Wildlife Fund
says that in general the quality of global ecosystems has deteriorated 30% since about 1970, and its “Footprint” measure indicates that we are now taking biological resources at a rate that would take 1.5 planets to

provide in a sustainable way. (2014.) The reason for all this massive resource depletion and damage to the
environment is simply that there is far too much producing and consuming going on. This
is causing too many resources to be taken from nature and too many wastes to be dumped back into nature. Now consider the limits case: Could everyone

live as we do? The 10-15% of the world’s people living in regions such as North America, Australia and Europe have per capita
levels of resource use that are around 20 times the average for the poorest half of people. How
likely is it that all the 9.7 billion people expected by 2050 could rise to the present rich world
level of resource use? If they did live as we do then world annual resource production and consumption, and ecological
damage, would be approaching 6 times as great as at present. Yet present levels of resource use and environmental impact are far from
sustainable. The World Wildlife Fund’s ”Footprint” analysis yields an even higher multiple. They estimate that it takes about 8 ha of productive land to provide water, energy settlement area and food for one

person living in Australia. Soif 9 billion people were to live as we do we would need about 72 billion ha of
productive land. But that is about 9 times all the available productive land on the planet. Now
add the absurdly impossible implications of economic growth. But the foregoing argument has only been that the
present levels of production and consumption are quite unsustainable. Yet we are determined to increase present living

standards and levels of output and consumption, as much as possible and without any end in sight. In other words, our
supreme national goal is economic growth. Few people seem to recognise the absurdly
impossible consequences of pursing economic growth. If we rich countries have a 3% p.a. increase in economic activity until 2050 then our output,
resource use and environmental impact will be around 4 times as great as it is now, and doubling every 23 years thereafter. Now what if by 2050 all the expected 9.7

billion people expected to be living on earth had risen to the “living standards” we in rich
countries would then have given 3% economic growth. Total world output, resource, use and
environmental impact would be approaching 15 times as great as they are now … unless technical advance and
efficiency gains could greatly reduce them. (See below.) These multiplies must be the focal point in discussions of sustainability. Grasping the magnitude of the overshoot and of the unsustainability is crucial here.

The numbers show that present, let alone probable 2050 rich world levels of consumption, are grossly unsustainable and could never be extended to all people. But can’t technical
advance solve the problems? Most people hold the "technical fix faith", believing that technical
advance will solve the resource and environmental problems and thereby make it unnecessary
for us to question the commitment to affluence and growth. When considering the following evidence keep in mind that what we need is not
just to stop increases in impacts as growth goes on -- we need to reduce impacts dramatically before sustainable levels are reached. There is a very strong case that technical advance

is nowhere near capable of solving the sustainability problems facing us. Note that many
miraculous technical developments, e.g., in physics, astronomy, genetics, and medicine, are not so relevant here where

the focus is on the possibility of making big improvements in the efficiency and energy costs of
producing energy and materials, and of cutting ecological impacts. Following are some of the main elements in the case. 1.
Efficiency gains to date. It is not the case that technical achievements in the relevant areas have been very

encouraging. Ayres and Vouroudis (2009) note that for many decades the efficiency of production of electricity and
fuels, electric motors, ammonia and iron and steel has more or less plateaued. In many crucial
areas such as producing energy and minerals (below) the trend is towards worse efficiency, i.e., the need is
for increasing inputs per unit of output. 2. The deteriorating productivity growth rate. Technical advance is regarded as a major determinant of productivity growth and that has been in long term decline since the

Even the advent of computerisation has had a surprisingly small effect, a phenomenon now
1970s.

labelled the “Productivity Paradox.” In fact the UK productivity growth rate has recently has gone
below zero; i.e., productivity has actually deteriorated. (Weldon, 2016.) 3. Little or no “decoupling” is
occurring for materials or energy use. This is the most important issue; does recent history indicate that economic
output has been or can be separated from materials and energy use, so that growth can continue
while resource demand falls? The “Tech-Fix faith” is fundamentally dependent on the
assumption that massive decoupling is possible. But all the evidence seems to say that the
amount of materials or energy needed to produce a unit of GDP in rich countries
has not improved much if at all in recent years. The box below refers to some of the evidence. Weidmann et al. (2014) say “…for the past
two decades global amounts of iron ore and bauxite extractions have risen faster than global GDP.” “… resource productivity…has fallen in developed nations.” “There has been no improvement whatsoever with
respect to improving the economic efficiency of metal ore use.” Giljum et al. (2014, p. 324) report in the world as a whole only a 0.9% p.a. improvement in the dollar value extracted from the use of each unit of

They point out

minerals between 1980 and 2009, and that over the 10 years before the GFC there was no improvement. “…not even a relative decoupling was achieved on the global level.”

that the picture would have been worse had they included the many materials in rich world
imports. Diederan’s account (2009) of the productivity of minerals discovery effort is even more pessimistic. Between 1980 and 2008 the annual major deposit discovery rate fell from 13 to less than 1,
while discovery expenditure went from about $1.5 billion p.a. to $7 billion p.a., meaning the productivity of expenditure fell by a factor in the vicinity of around 100, which is an annual decline of around 40% p.a.

there is a
Recent petroleum figures are similar; in the last decade or so the discovery rate has not increased but discovery expenditure more or less trebled. (Johnson, 2010.) Schandl et al. (2015) say “ …

very high coupling of energy use to economic growth, meaning that an increase in GDP drives a
proportional increase in energy use.” “Our results show that while relative decoupling can be achieved in
some scenarios, none would lead to an absolute reduction in energy or materials footprint.” In all three
of their scenarios “… energy use continues to be strongly coupled with economic activity...” Alvarez found that for Europe, Spain and the US, GDP increased 74% in 20 years, but materials use actually increased
85%. (Latouche, 2014.) Similar conclusions re stagnant or declining materials use productivity etc. are arrived at by Aadrianse, 1997, Dittrich et al., (2014), Schutz, Bringezu and Moll, (2004), Warr, (2004),
Berndt, (1990), Smil, (2014) and Victor (2008, pp. 55-56). (Note that economists often claim that the “energy intensity” of rich world economies is improving, but this is only because they fail to take into account

the huge amounts of energy used overseas to produce imports, and “fuel switching”; see Kaufman, 2004.) 4. There is ecological deterioration in almost all
domains. Technical advance has obviously not slowed, halted or reversed overall
damage to the planet’s ecosystems. The “Environmental Kuznets Curve” thesis is an
application of the decoupling claim to environmental impacts, asserting that as countries become richer impacts increase for a time but
then plateau and fall. There is little doubt now that the thesis is not valid. Rich countries are in general not solving their most serious

environmental problems. Alexander’s review (2014) concludes that for the world as a whole, ”… decades

of extraordinary technological development have resulted in increased, not

reduced, environmental impacts.” These many sources and figures show the extreme
implausibility of the tech-fix faith that in future technical advances will enable us to stop worrying about limits
and any need to dramatically reduce consumption or the obsession with economic growth. Conclusions
on the limits to growth case. In view of these lines of argument it is difficult to see how anyone could disagree with the basic limits

to growth case. Present ways are so grossly unsustainable there is no possibility of all people
rising to the living standards we take for granted today in rich countries, let alone those we are
seeking. Again the most important point is the magnitude of the overshoot. Most people have no idea of how far beyond sustainable
levels of consumption we are or how big the reductions should be. For decades many scientists and agencies are have
been emphasizing the validity and importance of the basic limits case. Sustainable ways that all could share appear to require us
to go down to per capita rates of resource consumption around 10% of those we have now. It follows from the above discussion that the only solution is to shift to

some kind of Simpler Way, i.e., to lifestyles, settlements and systems that make it
possible for us to live well on a small fraction of our present rich world levels, with
no economic growth. THE INJUSTICE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. Our goal should be societies that are sustainable and just. The present economy
is massively and unavoidably unjust; it does not and it can not distribute things fairly or develop
the right things. (For the detail see TSW: The Economic System.) As well as being an economic system that must have growth, the fundamental driving
mechanism in this economy is the market, and this never distributes things according to what is
needed, or according to rights, or what is ecologically desirable. Markets always allocate most scarce things to those who can pay most
for them, i.e., richer people and nations. That explains the huge differences between rich and poor nations in resource

and energy consumption; we get most of the oil and everything else for sale because we can pay
more than poor people who need things much more than we do. About 600 million tonnes of grain, one third
of world production, is fed to animals in rich countries every year while over 800 million people
are hungry. Why? Because the market determines who gets the grain; it is more profitable to feed it to
animals to produce meat for richer people. Even more importantly, this economy never develops what is most
needed; it always develops only what is most profitable for people with capital to invest. It is not difficult to
list things the majority of people in Haiti need, but what industries has this economy developed there? Mostly plantations and factories paying very low wages to a few, to produce goods to export to rich countries.
Haiti has rich resources that could enable all its poor people to provide for themselves most of the simple things they need for quite good lifestyles, but this economy gears those resources to the enrichment of the
local capitalist class, foreign corporations and people who shop in rich world supermarkets. For these reasons, conventional Third World development can be seen as a form of legitimised plunder. (See TSW: Third
 It should be noted here that this does
World Development, and TSW: Our Empire. For an indication of the alternative approach to development see TSW: Chikukwa.)

not mean that there can be no role for markets in a satisfactory society. It does mean that they
must not be allowed to determine our fate. The account below indicates how communities might work out what things markets might be left to do, and eventually
whether there is any need for them. So again we are confronted with the way consumer-capitalist society inevitably

causes the most serious global problems; it cannot cut production to sustainable levels and it
cannot enable just distributions or appropriate development priorities . The problems in both
these domains can only be solved if people in rich countries shift down to living on something
like their fair share of global resources. This cannot be done unless there are huge and radical changes in systems, lifestyles and values. Few people in rich countries
understand that they could not have their high "living standards" if the global economy was not enabling them to take far more than a just share of world resources and to deprive Third world people of a fair share.
This also reveals the link between resource scarcity and limits on the one hand, and conflict and war in the world. Most armed conflict it is due to struggles to get or maintain access to scarce resource wealth in
other countries. Rich nations support repressive regimes willing to rule in our interests and they work to bring down governments that don’t. If you are not prepared to move down to living on something like your
fair share of world resources then you will continue to need lots of arms to maintain your empire. (See TSW: Peace and Conflict.) The loss of social cohesion and quality of life. 7 In addition to the foregoing

, in the richest countries we are experiencing accelerating social breakdown and a falling
problems

quality of life. This too is largely the result of the mindless pursuit of limitless material wealth. It has been clear for a long time that in rich countries raising GDP and monetary “wealth” adds little
or nothing to the quality of life. In fact it is because “…getting the economy going” is the top priority that the quality of life is suffering. Many people do not get a satisfactory share of the wealth, jobs or resources

Many are being dumped into “exclusion”. It is no surprise therefore

and are having to work harder in more stressful conditions.

that there is much drug abuse, crime and social breakdown, or that stress, anxiety and
depression are now possibly the most common illnesses. Most people work far harder than would be needed in a sane society. Large numbers of
young people will never be able to afford a house. There is little or no investment in the development of community or cooperative institutions. Neo-liberal doctrine advocates that all must compete against each

It is evident that
other as self-interested individuals for as much wealth as possible, when the sensible way for humans to relate to each other is via cooperation, sharing, giving and nurturing.

social attitudes are becoming more selfish and increasing numbers of people believe the future
will be worse than the present. Most of this is due to allowing the market to become the dominant determinant of what happens in society. Market forces drive out good social
values and behaviour, because they make us focus only on competing to maximise self interest. There is no place in markets for giving, generosity, care, collectivism or concern for the public good. In addition when
market forces are freed to determine what happens then what is developed is what will maximize the profits of those few with most capital, not what will most benefit society. It is not possible to have a good
society unless we make sure that considerations of morality, justice, the public good and environmental sustainability are the primary determinants of what happens. This means what is done must be basically
determined by rational collective discussion of what is needed, just and ecologically wise… again implying a need for fundamental economic change.

Transition solves – elite mindset shift irrelevant

Trainer, 5-10-16 – (Ted, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Work, University of New South
Wales, “Sustainability – The Simpler Way perspective,” Reslieience,
http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2016/07_July/Sustainability%20The%20Simpler%
20Way%20Perspective.pdf,//BR/)
The alternative: The Simpler Way. The core Simpler Way claim is that it would not be difficult to shift to
ways that were sustainable and just. But it would be a very different society, and at present most
people would not accept it. Following is a brief indication of some of the main elements in this vision, intended to indicate
that it would be workable and attractive. (For the detailed account see TSW: The Alternative Society.) The basic settlement
form must be the small scale town or suburb, restructured to be a highly self-sufficient local
economy running mostly on local resources and requiring a minimal amount of resources and
goods to be imported from further afield. State and national governments would still exist but
with relatively few functions. There would be extensive development of local commons such as
community workshops, windmills, watersheds, forests, edible landscapes. Cooperatives would
provide many goods and services. Much use could be made of high tech systems but mostly
relatively low technologies would be used in small firms and farms, especially earth building, hand tool
craft production, Permaculture, community gardening and commons. Leisure committees would maintain leisure rich communities,
and other committees would manage orchards, woodlots, agricultural research, and the welfare of disabled, teenage, aged and other
groups. Local economies would dramatically reduce the need for vehicles and transport, enabling
conversion of many roads to community food production. These settlements would have to be self-governing
via thoroughly participatory procedures, including town meetings and referenda. Citizens are the only ones who can understand
local conditions, histories, social relations, problems and needs, and they would have to work out the best policies for the town and
then implement the decisions arrived at. Centralised states could not govern them at all effectively, especially given the much
diminished resources that will be available to states. More importantly the town would not meet its own needs well
unless its citizens had a strong sense of empowerment and control and responsibility for its own
affairs. Systems, procedures and the overriding ethos would have to be predominantly cooperative and collective, given the
recognition that individual welfare would not depend on individual wealth but on how well the town was functioning. It would not
be likely to thrive unless there was an atmosphere of inclusion and care, sharing, solidarity and responsibility. An entirely new
kind of national economy would be needed, one that did not grow, rationally geared productive
capacity to social need, had far lower than present levels of per capita production, consumption,
resource use and GDP, was under public control, and was not driven by market forces, profit or
competition. However, there might also be a large sector made up of privately owned small firms and farms, producing to sell in
local markets, although they would have to operate in designated sectors and under careful guidelines set by the town to ensure
optimum benefit for the town. The transition period would essentially be about slowly establishing those
enterprises, infrastructures, cooperatives, commons and institutions (an “Economy B”) whereby the
town built up its capacity to make sure that what needed doing was done, within the exiting
mainly fee enterprise system (Economy A.) Over time experience would indicate the best balance between the two, and
whether there was any need to retain elements of Economy A. There would be many “free” goods from the
commons, a large non-cash sector involving sharing, giving, helping and voluntary working bees, and almost no finance sector.
Small public banks with elected boards would hold savings and arrange loans for maintenance or restructuring. Some people might
pay all their tax by extra contributions to the community working bees. Communities would ensure that there was
no unemployment or poverty, no isolation or exclusion, all felt secure, and that all had a
livelihood, a worthwhile and valued contribution to make to the town. Because the goal would be material
lifestyles that were frugal but sufficient, involving for instance small and very low cost earth built houses, on average people might
need to work for money only two days a week. It can be argued that the quality of life would be much higher than it
is for most people in rich countries today. (See TSW: Your 9 Delightful Day.) Lest these ideas seem fanciful, they
describe the ways many thousands now live in eco-villages. Beyond the town or suburban level there would be regional
and national economies, and larger cities containing universities, steel works, and large scale
production, e.g., of railway equipment, but their size and activities would be greatly reduced, and
reorganized so that their purpose was to provide what the local economies need. There would be little
international trade or travel. The termination of the present vast expenditure on wasteful production would enable the amount spent
on socially useful R and D to be significantly increased. A detailed analysis of an Australian suburban geography (TSW: Remaking
Settlements) concludes that technically it would be relatively easy to carry out the very large reductions and restructurings indicated,
possibly cutting per capita energy and dollar costs by around 90%. It is obvious that the Simpler Way vision could
not be realised unless there was enormous cultural change, especially away from competitive,
acquisitive, maximising individualism and towards frugality, collectivism, sufficiency and
responsible citizenship. Fortunately there is now increasing recognition that pursuing ever
greater material wealth and GDP is not a promising path to greater human welfare.
In a zerogrowth settlement there could be no concern with the accumulation of wealth; all would have to be content with stable and
secure circumstances, content to enjoy nonmaterial life satisfactions, and to be aware that their “welfare” depended not on their
individual monetary wealth but on public wealth, i.e., on their town’s infrastructures, systems, edible landscapes, free concerts,
working bees, committees, leisure resources, friendly and helpful and generous climate, solidarity and morale. THE TRANSITION?
If the foregoing discussion is more or less sound, then some coercive implications for transition strategy follow, and some of these
contradict commonly held ideas. The transition will not be given, or imposed, by top-down processes. It cannot be led by
governments. The Simpler Way cannot come into existence unless people in general eventually
come to want it, and enthusiastically start to build it where they live. It is by definition about eagerness to
live frugally and cooperatively in highly self-sufficient and self-governing communities. Such communities can only be
built and run by aware and conscientious citizens. This means that the focus for activists should
not be on getting green parties elected or on “taking state power.” Whether you get power democratically or
violently it will be of little or no value in helping you transform towns and suburbs into self-managed communities…. unless that’s
what people have first come to want. So the primary and immediate task is to focus on raising the awareness that we have to work
for transition to some kind of Simpler Way. This is the classical anarchist perspective on transition. It
recognises that a genuine revolution cannot take place unless it comes from deep and
widespread commitment by the people to a radically new way. When most people opt for that the revolution
will have been won, and remaking the state etc. along new lines will probably be a fairly straight forward consequence of the
revolution. Thus the main target, the main problem group, the basic block to progress, is not the corporations
or the capitalist class. They have their power because people in general grant it to them. The problem group,
the key to transition, is people in general. If they came to see The Simpler Way as preferable,
consumer-capitalist society would quickly be replaced. Therefore the most effective thing for
activists to do is to work here and now for localism, within the settlements we live in. But our main purpose
should not be to construct more compost heaps and community gardens etc., important though that is. It should be to be in
the best position to persuade people in the town or suburb towards The Simpler Way
perspective, above all to see that nice green, small localist reforms within the existing society will not
save the planet. (See TSW: A Friendly critique of the Transition Towns movement.)
 CHINA RISE IMPACTS
Economic constraint key to prevent military modernization
Navarro, 16 - (Peter, professor at the University of California-Irvine. He is the author of
Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World, "Strangle China’s Economy:
America’s Ultimate Trump Card?," National Interest, 2-1-2016,
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/strangle-chinas-economy-americas-ultimate-trump-
card-15087,//BR/)
Winston Churchill once famously remarked that Bolshevism must be “strangled in its crib.” In that same spirit, should the
United States now seek to strangle China’s economy as a means of deterring its aggression? In fact,
“strangling China” is a theme I encountered frequently while interviewing experts for my book and documentary film Crouching
Tiger. For example, National Defense University’s T.X. Hammes sees such strangulation as the core concept of his strategy of
Offshore Control. As Hammes has argued right on the pages of the National Interest: “China’s imports and exports add
up to more than 50 percent of its GDP. A depression, not recession, is often defined as an economic downturn of 10
percent or more. Since the Communist Party’s legitimacy is based on economic growth, major
reductions in China’s imports and exports will create major pressure for a solution. Worse, from
China’s point of view, is that U.S. control of the seas outside the first island chain means the world economy will begin to rebuild.
The longer China maintains the conflict, the harder it will be to recover lost trade relationships. It is hard to see how Chinese leaders
will simply ignore this kind of economic damage.” While Hammes wants to play the strangulation card only if China commits an act
of aggression, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer sees such strangulation more as a non-kinetic “preemptive
strike”—and one certainly preferable to a kinetic “preemptive war” to stop a rising China in its hegemonic tracks. Explains
Mearsheimer: “If China continues to grow economically, it will translate that wealth into military
might and try to dominate Asia. . . . There's no question preventive [nuclear] war makes no
sense at all, but a much more attractive strategy would be to slow down China's economic
growth. “If China doesn't grow economically, it can't turn that wealth into military might and
become a potential hegemon in Asia. What really makes China so scary today is that it has so
many people and it's also becoming an incredibly wealthy country. [So] I think it's in America's
interest and it's in the interest of China's neighbors to see the Chinese economy slow down
because if that happens, it can't become a formidable military power.” U.S.-China Commission members
Dan Slane and Pat Mulloy come at the strangulation strategy from a more US-centric perspective. They see China’s unfair trade
practices, which include everything from illegal export subsidies, currency manipulation, and intellectual property theft to a reliance
on sweatshop labor and pollution havens, as non-kinetic weapons of job destruction. They further insist that a mercantilist
China has systematically used such mercantilist weapons to attack America’s manufacturing
base and severely erode US military might and defensive readiness. To both Slane and Mulloy—and
presidential candidate Donald Trump—a “defensive counterstrike” in the form of countervailing tariffs on Made in China products is
a long overdue strategy. To Slane and Mulloy, such tariffs are necessary to not only rebalance the U.S.-China trade relationship but
to also level the emerging battlefield as well. Explains Commissioner Slane on the need to play the Donald Trump tariff card: “It is
in China's best interest long term to continue to make life difficult for us economically and
continue to push us down because they realize that if we're economically weak, then we can't be
strong militarily. The Chinese have the opposite situation where they have acquired over three trillion dollars in reserves
primarily from trade deficits; and they're using a big chunk of that money to modernize their military. And they are building up their
navy and their air force, and their army enormously, and getting to the point where they will eventually rival our military in the very
near future.” Former U.S.-China Commissioner Mulloy is no less circumspect: “When you run massive trade deficits
with a country, year after year, your economy is getting weaker, their economy is getting
stronger. This is a terrific national security problem for the United States.”

Economic growth fuels China’s rise – causes them to act in accordance with
offensive realism which causes SCS expansionism and territorial conflicts – decks
heg
Mearsheimer, 14 - (John J., the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of
Political Science at the University of Chicago, "Can China Rise Peacefully?," National Interest,
10-25-2014, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204,//BR/)
If China continues its striking economic growth over the next few decades, it is likely to act in
accordance with the logic of offensive realism, which is to say it will attempt to imitate the United
States. Specifically, it will try to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western
Hemisphere. It will do so primarily because such domination offers the best way to survive under
international anarchy. In addition, China is involved in various territorial disputes and the more
powerful it is, the better able it will be to settle those disputes on terms favorable to Beijing.
Furthermore, like the United States, a powerful China is sure to have security interests around the globe, which will prompt it to develop the capability to project military power into regions far beyond Asia. The
Persian Gulf will rank high on the new superpower’s list of strategically important areas, but so will the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, China will have a vested interest in creating security problems for the United
States in the Western Hemisphere, so as to limit the American military’s freedom to roam into other regions, especially Asia. Let us consider these matters in greater detail. Chinese Realpolitik If my theory is

correct,China will seek to maximize the power gap with its neighbors, especially larger countries like India, Japan, and Russia. China will
want to make sure it is so powerful that no state in Asia has the wherewithal to threaten it. It is unlikely that China
will pursue military superiority so that it can go on a rampage and conquer other Asian
countries. One major difference between China and the United States is that America started out
as a rather small and weak country located along the Atlantic coastline that had to expand
westward in order to become a large and powerful state that could dominate the Western Hemisphere. For the United States,
conquest and expansion were necessary to establish regional hegemony. China, in contrast, is
already a huge country and does not need to conquer more territory to establish itself as a
regional hegemon on a par with the United States. Of course, it is always possible in particular circumstances that Chinese leaders will conclude that it is imperative to attack another country
to achieve regional hegemony. It is more likely, however, that China will seek to grow its economy and become so powerful that it

can dictate the boundaries of acceptable behavior to neighboring countries, and make it clear they will pay a substantial
price if they do not follow the rules. After all, this is what the United States has done in the Western Hemisphere. For example, in 1962, the Kennedy administration let both Cuba and the Soviet Union know that it
would not tolerate nuclear weapons in Cuba. And in 1970, the Nixon administration told those same two countries that building a Soviet naval facility at Cienfuegos was unacceptable. Furthermore, Washington
has intervened in the domestic politics of numerous Latin American countries either to prevent the rise of leaders who were perceived to be anti-American or to overthrow them if they had gained power. In short,
the United States has wielded a heavy hand in the Western Hemisphere. A much more powerful China can also be expected to try to push the United States out of the Asia-Pacific region, much as the United States
pushed the European great powers out of the Western Hemisphere in the nineteenth century. We should expect China to devise its own version of the Monroe Doctrine, as imperial Japan did in the 1930s. In fact,
we are already seeing inklings of that policy. For example, Chinese leaders have made it clear they do not think the United States has a right to interfere in disputes over the maritime boundaries of the South China
Sea, a strategically important body of water that Beijing effectively claims as its own. China also objected in July 2010 when the United States planned to conduct naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, which is located
between China and the Korean Peninsula. In particular, the U.S. Navy planned to send the aircraft carrier USS George Washington into the Yellow Sea. Those maneuvers were not directed at China; they were
aimed instead at North Korea, which was believed to have sunk a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, in the Yellow Sea. However, vigorous protests from China forced the Obama administration to move the
exercises out of the Yellow Sea and farther east into the Sea of Japan. Sounding a lot like President Monroe, a Chinese spokesperson succinctly summed up Beijing’s thinking: “We firmly oppose foreign military
vessels or planes entering the Yellow Sea and other waters adjacent to China to engage in activities that would impact on its security and interests.” More generally, there is considerable evidence that Chinese
leaders would like to develop the capability to push the U.S. Navy beyond the “first island chain,” which is usually taken to include the Greater Sunda Islands, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan. If this were to
happen, China would be able to seal off the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and the Yellow Sea, and it would be almost impossible for the U.S. Navy to reach Korea in the event of war. There is even talk in
China about eventually pushing the U.S. Navy beyond the “second island chain,” which runs from the eastern coast of Japan to Guam and then down to the Moluccan Islands. It would also include the small island
groups like the Bonin, Caroline, and Marianas Islands. If the Chinese were successful, Japan and the Philippines would be cut off from American naval support. These ambitious goals make good strategic sense for
China (although this is not to say China will necessarily be able to achieve them). Beijing should want a militarily weak and isolated India, Japan, and Russia as its neighbors, just as the United States prefers a
militarily weak Canada and Mexico on its borders. What state in its right mind would want other powerful countries located in its region? All Chinese surely remember what happened over the last century when

why would a powerful China accept U.S. military forces operating in its
Japan was powerful and China was weak. Furthermore,

backyard? American policymakers object when other great powers send military forces into the
Western Hemisphere, because they view those foreign forces as potential threats to American
security. The same logic should apply to China. Why would China feel safe with U.S. forces
deployed on its doorstep? Following the logic of the Monroe Doctrine, would not China’s security be better served by pushing the American military out of the Asia-Pacific region? All
Chinese surely remember what happened in the hundred years between the First Opium War (1839–42) and the end of World War II (1945), when the United States and the European great powers took advantage

Are the
of a weak China and not only violated its sovereignty but also imposed unfair treaties on it and exploited it economically. Why should we expect China to act differently than the United States?

Chinese more principled than we are? More ethical? Are they less nationalistic? Less
concerned about their survival? They are none of these things, of course, which is why China is
likely to follow basic realist logic and attempt to become a regional hegemon in Asia. Although maximizing its
prospects of survival is the principal reason China will seek to dominate Asia, there is another reason, related to Beijing’s territorial disputes with some of its neighbors. As Taylor Fravel points out, China has
managed to settle most of its border conflicts since 1949—seventeen out of twenty-three—in good part because it has been willing to make some significant concessions to the other side. Nevertheless, China has six
outstanding territorial disagreements, and there is little reason—at least at this juncture—to think the involved parties will find a clever diplomatic solution to them. Probably China’s most important dispute is
over Taiwan, which Beijing is deeply committed to making an integral part of China once again. The present government on Taiwan, however, believes it is a sovereign country and has no interest in being
reintegrated into China. Taiwanese leaders do not advertise their independence, for fear it will provoke China to invade Taiwan. In addition, China has ongoing disputes with Vietnam over control of the Paracel

China
Islands in the South China Sea, and with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam over the Spratly Islands, which are also located in the South China Sea. More generally,

maintains that it has sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, a claim disputed not only by its neighbors but by the United States as
well. Farther to the north in the East China Sea, Beijing has a bitter feud with Japan over who controls a handful of small islands that Tokyo calls the Senkaku Islands and China labels the Diaoyu Islands. Finally,
China has land border disputes with Bhutan and India. In fact, China and India fought a war over the disputed territory in 1962, and the two sides have engaged in provocative actions on numerous occasions since
then. For example, New Delhi maintains there were 400 Chinese incursions into Indian-controlled territory during 2012 alone; and in mid-April 2013, Chinese troops—for the first time since 1986—refused to
return to China after they were discovered on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control. It appears that China has been stepping up its cross-border raids in recent years in response to increased Indian troop

Given the importance of these territorial disputes to China, coupled

deployments and an accompanying growth in infrastructure.

with the apparent difficulty of resolving them through the give-and-take of diplomacy, the best
way for China to settle them on favorable terms is probably via coercion. Specifically, a China that is much more powerful than
any of its neighbors will be in a good position to use military threats to force the other side to accept a deal largely on China’s terms. And if that does not work, China can always unsheathe the sword and go to war

coercion or the actual use of force is the only plausible way China is going to
to get its way. It seems likely that

regain Taiwan. In short, becoming a regional hegemon is the best pathway for China to resolve its
various territorial disputes on favorable terms. It is worth noting that in addition to these territorial disputes, China might become
embroiled in conflict with its neighbors over water. The Tibetan Plateau, which is located within China’s borders, is the third-
largest repository of freshwater in the world, ranking behind the Arctic and Antarctica. Indeed, it is sometimes referred to as the “third pole.” It is
also the main source of many of Asia’s great rivers, including the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy, the Mekong, the Salween, the Sutlej, the Yangtze, and the
Yellow. Most of these rivers flow into neighboring countries, where they have a profound effect on the daily lives of many millions of people. In recent years, Beijing has shown much

interest in rerouting water from these rivers to heavily populated areas in eastern and northern
China. Toward that end, China has built canals, dams, irrigation systems, and pipelines. This plan is in its early stages and has
yet to change the flow of these rivers in a meaningful fashion. But the potential for trouble is substantial, because the neighboring countries downstream are likely to see a marked reduction in their water supply
 the Chinese are interested in diverting the
over time, which could have devastating economic and social consequences. For example,

Brahmaputra River northward into the dying Yellow River. If this happens, it would cause major
problems in India and especially in Bangladesh. China is also working to redirect water from the Mekong River, a diversion that is almost certain to
cause big problems in Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. In
its efforts to begin rerouting the rivers flowing out of the Tibetan Plateau, China has acted unilaterally and shown little interest in

building international institutions that can help manage the ensuing problems. Given that water is becoming an
increasingly scarce resource in Asia, this problem is likely to get worse with time and, given the enormous stakes involved, might even lead to war between China and one or more of its neighbors. In addition to

a rising China will have strategic interests outside of Asia, just as the United States
pursuing regional hegemony,

has important interests beyond the Western Hemisphere. In keeping with the dictates of
offensive realism, China will have good reason to interfere in the politics of the Americas so as to
cause Washington trouble in its own backyard, thus making it more difficult for the U.S. military to move freely around the world. During the Cold War, the
Soviet Union formed a close alliance with Cuba in good part for the purpose of interfering in America’s backyard. In the future, relations between the United States and a country like Brazil will perhaps worsen,
creating an opportunity for China to form close ties with Brazil and maybe even station military forces in the Western Hemisphere. Additionally, China will have powerful incentives to forge ties with Canada and
Mexico and do whatever it can to weaken America’s dominance in North America. Its aim will not be to threaten the American homeland directly, but rather to distract the United States from looking abroad and

This claim may sound implausible at present, but remember that

force it to focus increased attention on its own neighborhood.

the Soviets tried to put nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba in 1962, had more than 40,000 troops in Cuba that same year, and also provided
Cuba with a wide variety of sophisticated conventional weapons. And do not forget that the United States already has a huge military presence in China’s backyard. China will obviously

want to limit America’s ability to project power elsewhere, in order to improve Beijing’s
prospects of achieving regional hegemony in Asia. However, China has other reasons for wanting to pin down the United States as much as possible in the
Western Hemisphere. In particular, China has major economic and political interests in Africa, which seem likely to increase in the future. Even more important, China is heavily dependent on oil from the Persian
Gulf, and that dependence is apt to grow significantly over time. China, like the United States, is almost certain to treat the Persian Gulf as a vital strategic interest, which means Beijing and Washington will

eventually engage in serious security competition in that region, much as the two superpowers did during the Cold War. Creating trouble for the United States in
the Western Hemisphere will limit its ability to project power into the Persian Gulf and Africa. To
take this line of analysis a step further, most of the oil that China imports from the Gulf is transported by sea. For all the

talk about moving that oil by pipelines and railroads through Myanmar and Pakistan, the fact is
that maritime transport is a much easier and cheaper option. However, for Chinese ships to reach the Gulf as well as Africa from China’s
major ports along its eastern coast, they have to get from the South China Sea into the Indian Ocean, which are separated by various Southeast Asian countries. The only way for

Chinese ships to move between these two large bodies of water is to go through three major passages. Specifically, they can go through the Strait of
Malacca, which is surrounded by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, or they can go farther south and traverse either the
Lombok or the Sunda Strait, each of which cuts through Indonesia and leads into the open waters of the Indian Ocean just to the northwest of Australia. Chinese ships then have to

traverse the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea to reach the Persian Gulf. After that, they have to
return to China via the same route. Chinese leaders will surely want to control these sea lines of
communication, just as the United States emphasizes the importance of controlling its primary sea
routes. Thus, it is hardly surprising that there is widespread support in China for building a blue-water navy, which would allow China to project power around the world and control its main sea lines of
communication. In brief, if China continues its rapid economic growth, it will almost certainly

become a superpower, which means it will build the power-projection capability

necessary to compete with the United States around the globe. The two areas to which it is likely to pay the greatest
attention are the Western Hemisphere and the Persian Gulf, although Africa will also be of marked importance to Beijing. In addition, China will undoubtedly try to build military and naval forces that would allow
it to reach those distant regions, much the way the United States has pursued sea control.

They will intervene in these growth driven conflicts specifically – they fear opting
out would kill credibility
Keck 14 – citing John Mearsheimer, professor of IR - (Zachary, US-China Rivalry More
Dangerous Than Cold War?, http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/us-china-rivalry-more-
dangerous-than-cold-war/,//BR/)
The prominent realist international relations scholar John Mearsheimer says there is a greater possibility of the U.S. and China
going to war in the future than there was of a Soviet-NATO general war during the Cold War. Mearsheimer made the comments at a
lunch hosted by the Center for the National Interest in Washington, DC on Monday. The lunch was held to discuss Mearsheimer’s
recent article in The National Interest on U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East. However, much of the conversation during the
Q&A session focused on U.S. policy towards Asia amid China’s rise, a topic that Mearsheimer addresses in greater length in the
updated edition of his classic treatise, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, which is due out this April. In contrast to the Middle
East, which he characterizes as posing little threat to the United States, Mearsheimer said that the U.S. will face a
tremendous challenge in Asia should China continue to rise economically. The University of Chicago
professor said that in such a scenario it is inevitable that the U.S. and China will engage in an intense
strategic competition, much like the Soviet-American rivalry during the Cold War. While stressing that he didn’t
believe a shooting war between the U.S. and China is inevitable, Mearsheimer said that he
believes a U.S.-China Cold War will be much less stable than the previous American-Soviet one.
His reasoning was based on geography and its interaction with nuclear weapons. Specifically, the center of gravity of the
U.S.-Soviet competition was the central European landmass. This created a rather stable situation as,
according to Mearsheimer, anyone that war gamed a NATO-Warsaw conflict over Central Europe understood that it would quickly
turn nuclear. This gave both sides a powerful incentive to avoid a general conflict in Central Europe
as a nuclear war would make it very likely that both the U.S. and Soviet Union would be
“vaporized.” The U.S.-China strategic rivalry lacks this singular center of gravity.
Instead, Mearsheimer identified four potential hotspots over which he believes the U.S. and China
might find themselves at war: the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait and the South and East
China Seas. Besides featuring more hotspots than the U.S.-Soviet conflict, Mearsheimer implied that he felt that
decision-makers in Beijing and Washington might be more confident that they could engage in a
shooting war over one of these areas without it escalating to the nuclear threshold. For instance, he
singled out the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, of which he said there was a very real
possibility that Japan and China could find themselves in a shooting war sometime in the next
five years. Should a shooting war break out between China and Japan in the East China Sea, Mearsheimer said he believes the
U.S. will have two options: first, to act as an umpire in trying to separate the two sides and
return to the status quo ante; second, to enter the conflict on the side of Japan. Mearsheimer said that
he thinks it’s more likely the U.S. would opt for the second option because a failure to do so would
weaken U.S. credibility in the eyes of its Asian allies. In particular, he believes that America trying to act as a
mediator would badly undermine Japanese and South Korean policymakers’ faith in America’s extended deterrence. Since the
U.S. does not want Japan or South Korea to build their own nuclear weapons, Washington
would be hesitant to not come out decisively on the side of the Japanese in any war between
Tokyo and Beijing. Mearsheimer did add that the U.S. is in the early stages of dealing with a rising China, and the full threat
would not materialize for at least another ten years. He also stressed that his arguments assumed that China
will be able to maintain rapid economic growth. Were China’s growth rates to
streamline or even turn negative, then the U.S. would remain the preponderant
power in the world and actually see its relative power grow through 2050. In
characteristically blunt fashion, Mearsheimer said that he hopes that China’s economy falters or
collapses, as this would eliminate a potentially immense security threat for the
United States and its allies. Indeed, Mearsheimer said he was flabbergasted by Americans and
people in allied states who profess wanting to see China continue to grow economically. He
reminded the audience that at the peak of its power the Soviet Union possessed a much smaller GDP
than the United States. Given that China has a population size over four times larger than
America’s, should it reach a GDP per capita that is comparable to Taiwan or Hong Kong today, it
will be a greater potential threat to the United States than anything America has previously dealt
with.

Chinese growth makes conflict inevitable

Navarro, 16 - (Peter, professor at the University of California-Irvine. He is the author of
Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World, "Mearsheimer on Strangling
China & the Inevitability of War," Huffington Post, 3-10-2016,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-
strangling_b_9417476.html,//BR/)
As part of the research for my Crouching Tiger book on the rise of China’s military and its companion documentary film, I interviewed 35 of the top
experts in the world from all sides of the China issue. These are key edited excerpts from my sit-down at the University of Chicago with Professor John
Mearsheimer, author of the realist classic work The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. My argument, in a nutshell, is that if
China continues
to grow economically over the next 30 years, much the way it has over the past 30 years, that it will translate that wealth
into military might. And it will try to dominate Asia, the way the United States dominates the
Western Hemisphere. And my argument is that this makes good strategic sense for China. Of course, the United States will not allow that
to happen if it can. And the United States will, therefore, form a balancing coalition in Asia, which will
include most of China’s neighbors and the United States. And they will work overtime to try to
contain China and prevent it from dominating Asia. This will lead to a very intense security
competition between the United States and China’s neighbors on one hand, and China on the
other hand. And there will be an ever-present danger of war. Of course from this observation rises the
imperative if not to strangle China’s economy then to certainly slow it down. There’s no question that preventive war makes no
sense at all, but a much more attractive strategy would be to do whatever we could to slow down
China’s economic growth. Because if it doesn’t grow economically, it can’t turn that wealth into
military might and become a potential hegemon in Asia. I mean, what really makes China so scary today is the fact that
it has so many people and it’s also becoming an incredibly wealthy country. Our great fear is that China will turn into a giant Hong Kong. And if it has a
per capita GNP that’s anywhere near Hong Kong’s GNP, it will be one formidable military power. So the question is, Can you prevent it from becoming
a giant Hong Kong? My great hope is that China’s economy will slow down on its own. I think it’s
in America’s interest, and it’s in the
interest of China’s neighbors to
see the Chinese economy slow down in terms of its growth rate in really
significant ways in the future because if that happens, it then can’t become a formidable military
power. As for the possible hegemonic intentions behind China’s rapid military buildup, Professor Mearsheimer is unequivocal: I think it’s very clear
that China is a revision of state. The Chinese have made it clear that they think that Taiwan should be made part of China. They believe that the
Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands, in the East China Sea, should become Chinese. The Japanese, of course, now control them. And they believe that they
should dominate the South China Sea in ways that they don’t at the moment. And what the Chinese would like to do, is they’d like to push the United
States back towards the United States. And the first step would be to push them beyond the First Island Chain, which would allow them to control all of
the waters in between that First Island Chain and the Chinese mainland. And then, of course, if they push the Americans out beyond the Second Island
Chain, they’d control most of the West Pacific. They’d control the waters off their coastline. On
the inevitably of conflict between
the US and China, its roots lie in the necessity of adopting a “containment strategy” much as the
US had to do with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Says Mearsheimer: I think that the optimal strategy for the
United States for dealing with China is to pursue a containment strategy similar to the one that we pursued with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
There will be some people who will argue for preventive war or for a rollback strategy, but it would be remarkably foolish, in my opinion, to pursue that
option. It makes much more sense for the United States just to work with China’s neighbors to try and contain it and to prevent it from becoming a
regional hegemon. The problem that we face, however, is that as we move towards a containment strategy now, we almost certainly guarantee that
there will be an intense security competition between the United States and China. One might say to me: “John, the argument you’re making for
containment now, basically creates a situation where you have a self-fulfilling prophecy, where it guarantees that China and the United States will
compete for security and they will always be a danger of war.” My response to that is it’s true, but we
have no choice because we
cannot afford to let China grow and dominate Asia for fear that it might have malign intentions.
So, therefore, we have to contain it now, and it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And my argument is that this is
the tragedy of great power politics.
 POLLUTION IMPACT
Growth Causes Pollution
Yan, 15 - (Sophia Yan, reporter, "Pollution red alert: China's filthy air is bad for business,"
CNNMoney, 12-8-2015, http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/08/news/economy/china-pollution-
business/,//BR/)
Severe pollution has again shut Beijing down after city officials issued their highest warning for
smog for the first time. The red alert is due to be in effect until noon Thursday local time (11 p.m. ET Wednesday). China
has long been battling the effects of pollution. Fast growth helped propel the country to
become the world's second-largest economy. But the rapid urbanization and
industrialization also meant plenty of polluting factories and businesses. There's no
question about it -- smog is taking a heavy toll on China, with many local companies taking a hit. The World Bank
estimates the total cost of air and water pollution is equivalent to 6% of Chinese GDP each year.
That includes the impact on health, along with damage to natural resources, such as ruined
crops from acid rain. Tourism is one of the first sectors to feel the pinch when Beijing and other
Chinese cities choke. Previous episodes have turned people away. According to the China Tourism Academy, the number
of overseas visitors to the country fell for three consecutive years through 2014. It blamed
catastrophic air pollution. "With the global economy stagnating, China's inbound market witnessed a
poor performance [last year], with serious air pollution in Beijing and other major cities a major
threat," said Euromonitor's Fangting Sun. President Xi Jinping announced a five-year plan to tackle pollution in September
2013, with the aim of reducing the country's reliance on coal-fired power stations. But progress has been slow, and pollution
continues to hurt the tourism industry, Sun said. And it's not just tourists who are staying away. Foreign
companies trying to build their businesses in China face problems recruiting
senior people from abroad because of pollution concerns. Fifty-three percent of firms are finding
it difficult to fill executive roles, according to a survey released earlier this year by Bain & Company and the American Chamber of
Commerce in China. For small firms, bad smog can be devastating. Jia Xiaojiang, 30, a street food vendor,
said Tuesday she loses roughly 20% of her customers on polluted days. For richer Chinese, there's often an
escape route. Half of those surveyed last year by Barclays said they planned to move abroad, citing
filthy air as one of the main reasons for wanting to emigrate.

Pollution is destroys bio-d, causes warming and CCP instability – turns the aff
Albert and Xu, 16 - (Elenanor, and Beina, reporters for CFR, "China's Environmental Crisis,"
Council on Foreign Relations, 1-18-2016, http://www.cfr.org/china/chinas-environmental-
crisis/p12608,//BR/)
Introduction China’s environmental crisis is one of the most pressing challenges to emerge from the
country’s rapid industrialization. Its economic rise, in which GDP grew on average 10 percent
each year for more than a decade, has come at the expense of its environment and public health.
China is the world’s largest source of carbon emissions, and the air quality of many of its major
cities fails to meet international health standards. Life expectancy north of the Huai River is 5.5 years lower than in the south due
to air pollution (life expectancy in China is 75.3 according to 2013 UN figures). Severe water contamination and scarcity have compounded land
deterioration. Environmental degradation threatens to undermine the country’s growth and exhausts
public patience with the pace of reform. It has also bruised China’s international standing and
endangered domestic stability as the ruling party faces increasing scrutiny and public
discontent. More recently, amid waning economic growt
h, leaders in Beijing appear more determined to institute changes to stem further degradation. A History of Pollution While China’s economic
boom has greatly accelerated the devastation of its land and resources, the roots of its environmental problem
stretch back centuries. Dynastic leaders who consolidated territory and developed China’s economy exploited natural resources in ways that
contributed to famines and natural disasters, writes CFR’s Elizabeth C. Economy in The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's
Future. “China’s current environmental situation is the result not only of policy choices made today but also of attitudes, approaches, and institutions
that have evolved over centuries,” Economy writes. It wasn’t until the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment that China began to
develop environmental institutions. It dispatched a delegation to the conference in Stockholm, but by then the country’s environment was already in
dire straits. Economic reforms in the late 1970s that encouraged development in rural industries
further exacerbated the problem. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping implemented a series of reforms that diffused authority to the
provinces, creating a proliferation of township and village enterprises (TVEs). By 1997, TVEs generated almost a
third of national GDP, though TVEs have since declined in relative importance to the Chinese economy. But local governments
were difficult to monitor and seldom upheld environmental standards. Today, with a transitioning
Chinese economy fueled by large state-owned enterprises, environmental policies remain
difficult to enforce at the local level, where officials often priotize hitting economic targets over
environmental concerns. Despite the government’s stated goals, actual change to environmental policies and
effective implementation will require revisiting state-society and state-market relations and
China’s bureaucratic power structure, writes CFR’s Yanzhong Huang. China’s modernization has lifted hundreds of millions out of
poverty and created a booming middle class. In some ways, the country’s trajectory of industrialization is not unlike those of other modernizing
nations, such as the UK in the early nineteenth century. But experts sayChina's environmental footprint is far greater
than that of any other single country. How Bad Is It? China is the world’s largest emitter of
greenhouse gases, having overtaken the United States in 2007, and was responsible for 27
percent of global emissions in 2014. The country’s energy consumption has ballooned, with reports from late 2015 implying that it
consumed up to 17 percent more coal than previously reported. In January 2013, Beijing experienced a prolonged bout of
smog so severe that citizens dubbed it an “airpocalypse”; the concentration of hazardous
particles was forty times the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization (WHO). In December 2015, Beijing
issued red alerts for severe pollution—the first since the emergency alert system was established. The municipal government closed schools, limited
road traffic, halted outdoor construction, and paused factory manufacturing. At least 80 percent of China’s 367 cities with real-time air quality
monitoring failed to meet national small-particle pollution standards during the first three quarters of 2015, according to a Greenpeace East Asia
report. In December 2015, the Asian Development Bank approved a $300 million loan to help China address the capital region’s choking smog. Coal is
largely to blame for the degradation of air quality. China is the world’s largest coal producer and accounts for about half of global consumption. Mostly
burned in the north, coal provides around two thirds of China’s energy mix, however demand for it appears to be declining. China’s National Energy
Agency claimed that coal use dropped to 64.2 percent of the mix in 2014, down almost two percent from 2012. This drop in coal demand also comes as
China’s economy is slowing, with its central bank forecasting that annual growth will only expand by 6.8 percent in 2016, down from 6.9 percent a year
earlier. Still, doubts linger of China’s commitment to wean itself from coal. In 2015, China’s coal power plant capacity increased by 55 percent in the
first six months, 155 new coal-fired plants were approved, and China admitted that it had underreported its annual coal consumption since 2000. There
were a record 17 million new cars on the road in 2014, further contributing to China’s high emissions. Car ownership was up to 154 million, according to
China’s Ministry of Public Security,with compared to roughly 27 million in 2004, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. Another trend
compounding air problems has been the country’s staggering pace of urbanization, a national priority. The government aims to have more than 60
percent of the Chinese population living in cities by 2020, up from 36 percent in 2000 (53.7 percent of the population in 2015 lived in urban areas).
Rapid urbanization increases energy demands to power new manufacturing and industrial centers. Experts also cite water depletion and pollution as
among the country’s biggest environmental challenges. China is home to 20 percent of the world’s population but only 7 percent (PDF) of its fresh
water sources. Overuse and contamination have produced severe shortages, with nearly 70 percent of the country’s water supplies dedicated to
agriculture and and 20 percent of supplies used in the coal industry, according to Choke Point: China, an environmental NGO initiative. Approximately
two-thirds of China’s roughly 660 cities suffer from water shortages. Former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has said that water shortages challenge “the
very survival of the Chinese nation.” Industry along China’s major water sources has polluted water supplies:
in 2014, groundwater supplies in more than 60 percent of major cities were categorized as “bad to very bad”
and more than a quarter of China’s key rivers are “unfit for human contact.” And lack of waste removal
and proper processing has exacerbated problems. Combined with negligent farming practices,
overgrazing, and the effects of climate change, the water crisis has turned much of China’s
arable land into desert. About 1.05 million square miles of China’s landmass are undergoing desertification, affecting more than 400
million people, according to the deputy head of China’s State Forestry Administration. Water scarcity, pollution, and
desertification are reducing China’s ability to sustain its industrial output and produce food and
drinkable water for its large population. Cost of Environmental Damage Environmental depredations pose a
serious threat to China’s economic growth, costing the country roughly 3 to 10 percent of its
gross national income, according to various estimates. China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection calculates estimates the cost of
pollution at around 1.5 trillion RMB ($227 billion), or roughly 3.5 percent of GDP, according to 2010 figures. Due to the sensitivity of the topic, the
ministry only releases such figures intermittently. Data
on the toll of China’s pollution on public health paint a
devastating picture. Air pollution contributes to an estimated 1.2 million premature deaths in
China annually. Epidemiological studies conducted since the 1980s in northern China suggest that poor air quality in Chinese cities causes
significant health complications, including respiratory, cardiovascular, and cerebrovascular diseases. Pollution has also been linked to the proliferation
of acute and chronic diseases; estimates suggest that around
11 percent of digestive-system cancers in China may
stem from unsafe drinking water. Recent studies have reported that emissions from China’s export industries are worsening air
pollution as far as the western United States. China’s neighbors, including Japan and South Korea, have also expressed concern over acid rain and smog
affecting their populations. Environmental ministers from the three northeast Asian countries agreed to boost cooperative efforts to curb air pollution
and to protect water quality and the maritime environment in 2014. The damage has also affected China’s economic prospects as it continues to pursue
extractive resources abroad, such as oil and other fossil fuels. Its economic partners, particularly in the developing world, face costly environmental
burdens attached with doing business with China, write CFR’s Economy and Michael Levi in By All Means Necessary, their book on China’s quest for
resources. Citizen Outrage Environmental
damage has cost China dearly, but the greatest collateral damage for the ruling
Communist Party has likely been growing social unrest. Demonstrations have proliferated as citizens
gain awareness of the health threats and means of organized protest (often using social media). In 2013, Chen
Jiping, former leading member of the party’s Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs said that environmental issues are a major reason for “mass
incidents” in China—unofficial gatherings
of one hundred or more that range from peaceful protest to
rioting. Environmental protests in rural and urban areas alike—such as those in Guangdong, Shanghai, Ningbo,
and Kunming—are increasing in frequency. The number of “abrupt environmental incidents”, including
protests, in 2013 rose to 712 cases, a 31 percent uptick from the previous year.
 AT: PEACEFUL RISE
All your authors have been fooled – China is disguising the hostile nature of its rise
so they can win in the long run – every word is underlined for a reason
Mearsheimer, 14 - (John J., the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of
Political Science at the University of Chicago, "Can China Rise Peacefully?," National Interest,
10-25-2014, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204,//BR/)
Why China Cannot Disguise Its Rise One might argue that, yes, China is sure to attempt to dominate Asia, but
there is a clever strategy it can pursue to achieve that end peacefully. Specifically, it should follow Deng
Xiaoping’s famous maxim that China keep a low profile and avoid becoming embroiled in international
conflicts as much as possible. His exact words were “Hide our capacities and bide our time, but also get some things
done.” The reason it makes sense for China to bide its time is that if it avoids trouble and merely
continues growing economically, it will eventually become so powerful that it can just get its way
in Asia. Its hegemony will be a fait accompli. But even if that does not happen and China
eventually has to use force or the threat of force to achieve hegemony and resolve its outstanding
disputes, it will still be well positioned to push its neighbors and the U nited States around. Starting
a war now, or even engaging in serious security competition, makes little sense for Beijing.
Conflict runs the risk of damaging the Chinese economy; moreover, China’s military would not fare well against
the United States and its current allies. It is better for China to wait until its power has increased and it is
in a better position to take on the American military. Simply put, time is on China’s side, which
means it should pursue a low-key foreign policy so as not to raise suspicion among its neighbors.
In practice, this means China should do whatever it can to signal to the outside world that it has
benign intentions and does not plan to build formidable and threatening military forces. In
terms of rhetoric, Chinese leaders should constantly emphasize their peaceful intentions and
make the case that China can rise peacefully because of its rich Confucian culture. At the same
time, they should work hard to keep Chinese officials from using harsh language to describe the
United States and other Asian countries, or from making threatening statements toward them.
 AT: NO IMPACT
China won’t turn inward – empirics, nationalism and territorial conflicts
Morimoto, 14 - (Andy, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, master’s degree from The University
of Chicago, "Can China Fall Peacefully?," National Interest, 11-19-2014,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-china-fall-peacefully-11703,//BR/)
As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, China’s growth will decline sharply in the coming decade, from 7.7 percent in 2013 to 3.9 percent between 2020 and 2025. Some
analysts are more pessimistic, projecting future growth rates as low as 1.6 or 1.7 percent. (To put these numbers in perspective, China grew at an average annual rate of 10.2
percent from 1980 to 2011.) These trends have led some at the National Interest to claim that China is headed for collapse and that we may be
approaching the end—not a delay—of China’s economic rise. What will be the
geopolitical implications for China, its neighbors and the United States if the Chinese economy
tanks? Would China be taken off of its supposed collision course, or would conflict remain unavoidable? Let’s start with a slight, but necessary, caveat: we have no
empirical evidence for future events and, therefore, need theories to answer these questions. That being said, there
are two that may be particularly helpful. The first theory assumes that an economic downturn in
China will force the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership to turn inwards, leaving little time and energy to pick fights with its Pacific
neighbors (let alone the United States). Chinese leaders will instead devote their attention to domestic policies, hoping to get their “house” in order. Unfortunately,

given the scale and scope of China’s current international disputes, this story is unlikely to pass.
Remember that China has at least five outstanding territorial disagreements : with Vietnam over

control of the Paracel Islands; with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam over the Spratly

Islands; with Japan over the Senkaku Islands; with Brunei and India over disputed land borders; and with Taiwan over the issue of
independence. It’s difficult to imagine that these simmering disputes would be cooled by a

weakened Chinese economy. Which brings us to our second theory—one that I believe is more likely to materialize. This theory posits that an
economic downturn in China will cause a crisis in legitimacy for the Chinese Communist Party, who will in
turn point to external threats to bolster its internal legitimacy. China’s leaders, in other words,
will play the nationalism card, perhaps provoking an international conflagration in one or more
of the aforementioned flashpoints. We’ve seen this movie before. Following World War II, the Chinese economy
was in shambles, yet China’s leadership did not turn inward, but rather to the Korean peninsula.
Similarly, during the economic catastrophe that was the Cultural Revolution, China’s

leaders turned to Vietnam. Zhang Lifan, a Chinese historian, explains that “historically, during every period with many
deep conflicts within the country, there has been a surge of anti-foreign sentiments from the
party.” Things are no different today. This year alone, China’s state-run newspaper, The People’s Daily, published forty-two articles blaming China’s domestic problems on
foreign forces. Even in the midst of this month’s APEC meeting (which is typically a golden opportunity to show off diplomatic credentials and feign bridge-building
Chinese
enthusiasm), President Xi Jinping publicly praised a young blogger who is now famous for his nationalistic writings—some of which border on xenophobia.

leaders won’t be able to easily turn off the nationalist anger that is created. And if China’s
economy does indeed sink, we should expect more of this strident nationalism, not less. Unfortunately,
it isn’t hard to picture a scenario in which a nationalist fervor sweeps across
China, leading to escalation, miscalculation or an accidental conflict.
 AT: ECON INTERDEPENDENCE
It doesn’t apply to China
Navarro, 16 - (Peter, professor at the University of California-Irvine. He is the author of
Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World, "Mearsheimer on Strangling
China & the Inevitability of War," Huffington Post, 3-10-2016,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-navarro-and-greg-autry/mearsheimer-on-
strangling_b_9417476.html,//BR/)
As for the idea that economic engagement itself is a viable peace strategy, Professor Mearsheimer
sees this as decidedly counter-historical: Many people find it hard to believe that countries that
engage in security competition also continue to trade with each other economically. But if you look at
Europe before World War I— and, indeed, if you look at Europe before World War II, what you see is that there was a great deal of economic interdependence on the continent
and with Britain before both world wars. So I believe that if China continues to grow economically, there will still be much economic intercourse between China and its
neighbors and China and the United States. And I still think that you will have a lot of potential for trouble between these two countries. And don’t forget, even though you had
If you look at Europe
all this economic intercourse between World War I and World War II, you still got World War I and you still got World War II.

before World War I, there were extremely high levels of economic interdependence between
Germany and virtually all of its neighbors, certainly between Germany and Russia, Germany and
France, and Germany and Britain, these were the main players. And despite this economic
interdependence, these high levels of economic interdependence, you still got World War I. Another
example would be the period before World War II. The Germans invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. And for the previous two years, Germany and the Soviet Union—
there
this is Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union— had been close allies in Europe. In fact, in September 1939 they had invaded Poland together and divided it up. So

was a great deal of economic intercourse between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union between 1939 and
22 June, 1941. Nevertheless, that economic interdependence did not prevent World War II from escalating into a

major war between Moscow and Berlin. And, in fact, there are all sorts of stories about the German forces invading the Soviet Union and
passing trains that were going into the Soviet Union that were carrying German goods, and trains coming from the Soviet Union towards Germany that were carrying Soviet raw
Closely related
materials and some Soviet goods as well. So there was economic interdependence between Germany and the Soviet Union and yet you still got a war.

to the argument that economic engagement will prevent war between the US and China is the
economic interdependence argument. In Professor Mearsheimer’s world that’s a dangerous
gamble because politics and nationalism can often trump economics. I’ve talked about the fact that I think China
cannot rise peacefully, probably a hundred times; and the argument that is used against me most often is clearly the economic interdependence argument, and
it goes like this: The United States and China, and China and its neighbors are all hooked on capitalism and

everybody is getting rich in this world of great economic interdependence; and nobody in their
right mind would start a war because you would, in effect, be killing the goose that lays the
golden egg. So that what is happening here is that economic interdependence has created a situation where it’s a firm basis for peace. I think this is
wrong. Let me explain. I think there’s no doubt that there are going to be certain circumstances where
economic interdependence will be enough to tip the balance in favor of peace; but I think as a
firm basis for peace, it won’t work because there will be all sorts of other situations where
politics trumps economics. People who are making the economic interdependence argument are
basically saying that economics trumps politics. There are no political differences that are salient enough, right, to override those
economic considerations? Again, there will be cases where that’s true. But there will be many more cases, in my opinion,

where political considerations are so powerful, so intense, that they will trump
economic considerations. And just to give you an example or two. Taiwan: The Chinese have made it clear that if Taiwan were to declare its
independence now, they would go to war against Taiwan, even though they fully understand that that would have major negative economic consequences for Beijing. They
understand that, but they would go to war anyway. Why? Because from a political point of view, it is so important to make Taiwan a part of China, that they could not tolerate
Taiwan declaring its independence. Another example is the conflict in the East China Sea between Japan and China, over the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands. It is possible to imagine
those two countries, China and Japan, actually ending up in a shooting match over a bunch of rocks in the East China Sea. How can this possibly be because it would threaten the
economic prosperity of both countries? It would have all sorts of negative economic consequences. But the fact is, from the Chinese point of view and the Japanese point of view,
these rocks are sacred territory. The politics of the situation are such that it is conceivable that should a conflict arise, it will escalate into a war because politics will trump
economics. One of the equally enduring themes of American foreign policy is that the existence of nuclear weapons will insure the peace in Asia. However, Professor
Mearsheimer is not so sure of that at all - and makes a powerful case the existence of nuclear weapons actually opens the door to more limited conflicts in Asia over key
The existence of nuclear weapons makes it virtually impossible for the
flashpoints like Korea and the Senkaku Islands.

United States and China to end up fighting World War III, in other words, a large conventional war. I think that the presence of
nuclear weapons makes that one scenario impossible; but I do think it’s possible that the United States and China could end up in a limited war over, let’s say, Taiwan, over
Korea, over the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, or over a series of islands in the South China Sea. These are more limited conflicts, and I think that nuclear
I think that nuclear weapons are a force for peace between the United
weapons do not make them impossible. So

States and China in the sense that they rule out World War III; but there are all sorts of other kinds of war, more limited in
nature, that I believe are not ruled out by the presence of nuclear weapons.
 COLLAPSE INEV
It’s coming now – stock market
Goldberg, 16 - (Ken, contributor on Real Money Silver, taught over 800 traders, appeared on CNBC,
and been recommended by Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities Magazine, "China's stock
market is about to crash," TheStreet, 3-25-2016, https://www.thestreet.com/story/13503606/1/china-s-
stock-market-is-about-to-crash-sell-before-it-s-too-late.html,//BR/)
Chinese stocks are poised to collapse, comprehensive technical analysis reveals. For the Shanghai
Composite index, risk has returned to the highest level since at least December, when the index finished a
four-month corrective rise to 3650 that saw it gain about 25% from the August low. That rise is labeled as wave (B) in this daily bar
chart, and it took the index right into the pink selling oval that was forecast at the August green-
circle low. [Chart Omitted] Note how the up/down/up rise off the recent January low appears as a smaller version of the pattern
from August to December. This corrective form is about to lead to new lows in the Shanghai Composite, with an initial target of
2000 +/-250, and even more bearish potential to eventual support near 1250 +/-100. This lower zone has been forecast by the
decision support engine since last summer, when we warned that the rise in Chinese stocks was about to end. In that analysis, on
July 6, we looked at the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) , which tracks shares of the largest Chinese companies, and
warned investors to exit all Chinese stocks before they made an eventual test or break of the 2008 lows. The iShares FTSE/Xinhua
China 25 Index closed July 6 at $43.84. By the time it hit its February low close of $28.44, it had lost 35%. It is likely to lose much
more value from recent levels of more than $33. It's likely to target the $14 +/-$2 zone, which would end the entire corrective
pattern from the 2007 peak. This would coincide with a reading of 1250 +/-100 on the Shanghai Composite. All of this means it's
time for investors to exit all long exposure to China, especially any positions using leverage or
margin, as the daily stochastics have just crossed down, triggering a new sell signal. Another indicator
of imminent decline is the present struggle at the upper Bollinger Band (purple dashed line at 3000). As mentioned above, the 2000
area is where initial target support awaits, but depending on the decision support engine's analysis at that time, buying might not be
indicated at that round-number psychological level. So, don't lock your sights on any exact price. Rather, stay tuned for further
updates in these pages, or by joining us in our live-market Trading Room, where we keep members up to date on all markets in real
time. This second chart is the monthly bar duration of the chart above, showing a similar picture as the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China
25 Index chart in the July article. [Chart Omitted] The huge crash into the 2008 low has been followed by only
an up/down/up rise. The decline since last spring is only part, but not all, of the final wave of
selling, as the crowd of Chinese speculators get wiped from what they believed to be easy money
markets. Do yourself the same favor you could have done at the decision support engine's July
warning: Exit all Chinese stocks now.

It’s inevitable – market dry up and expertism

Stephen, 4-22-16 - (Craig, columnist, "Is George Soros right about the coming crash in
China?," MarketWatch, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-george-soros-right-about-the-
coming-crash-in-china-2016-04-22,//BR/)
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — While China’s first-quarter growth figures pleased some analysts enough to
upgrade their forecasts, George Soros was not impressed. Doubling down on his earlier comments that a
hard landing for China was inevitable, he now says China’s is facing a financial crisis similar to
the U.S. in 2008. While such warnings over debt-fueled growth have become increasingly regular — both S&P and Moody’s cut the sovereign
credit outlook to negative in March — at the same time, China has proved remarkably adept at kicking the can down
the road. The voice of legendary investor Soros carries considerable weight — but are we really any nearer that crisis point? The counter argument
is that China is different due to its sheer size and the ability of a one-party government to exert unprecedented control over the economy. This would
mean conventional analytical tools or assumptions have to be jettisoned. Hard landings, financial or currency crisis would never quite materialize as we
expect. Of course, similar “this time is different” arguments were expounded during the 2001 tech bubble and then again with the U.S. property market
prior to the 2008 global financial crisis. Perhaps once again it is not different, just the
timing is out. There certainly appears to
be evidence of stress building, even if authorities continue to paper over any cracks. One place to
look would be interbank liquidity, given this was a key vulnerability during the global financial
crisis. On the surface things are relatively benign, although this is in a large part due to huge
central-bank intervention. This past week alone, the People’s Bank of China pumped 870 billion
yuan into markets to ease a cash drain. Another early reliable indicator is financial stress in
bond markets. This column recently highlighted that China’s corporate bond market has looked like the new weakest link. After the year began
with record domestic issuance, liquidity could now be drying up, with reports over 40 companies have canceled planned issuances
since March. Then there are sovereign bonds. Here, authorities will be hoping for a healthy appetite as a glut of bonds from local governments will be
hitting the market this year. The most obvious recent sign of building financial stress is in China’s currency
markets. China’s loosely pegged exchange rate USDCNH, +0.2660% has been under intense scrutiny as
its foreign reserves shrink — now down $800 billion since the middle of 2014. At the same time, China
has been tinkering with moving to a more market-driven exchange rate and two mini-
devaluations — one last August, and again at the beginning of this year — did not go well. Both
lead to big selloffs in global markets and appeared to trigger further capital outflows. This puts
authorities in a bind as in order to defend its loose peg to the greenback, dollars have to be used up, draining liquidity from the domestic economy.
And looser monetary policy can just lead to more capital exiting. March appeared to see some
stabilization in reserve depletion, yet there is still reason to be concerned the long-term trend is
lower. Indeed, some analysts argue that China is facing a steep depreciation in its currency,
whether or not we get a financial crisis or economic hard landing due to continued imbalance in
capital flows. Last week investment house CLSA issued a report arguing China will have no choice but to let the yuan float freely by 2017. This
epoch-like embrace of the market will lead to the yuan initially falling more than 25%, it predicts. The pain point for China is its
financial account, as surging capital outflows continue to dwarf the current account surplus. There
is no issue with China’s current account, which remains in surplus. For instance it posted a record $365.7 billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year.
CLSA says China’s
current policy of a gradual depreciation or crawling peg cannot fix its financial
account problem. In fact it can even make things worse, as it signals a one-way bet. This backs
Beijing into a corner. Faced with an inexorable depletion in foreign-exchange reserves, the only
way to find balance is through a market-driven exchange rate. This would enable “price discovery,” based on
anticipation of profit by buyers and sellers of the yuan. The problem, however, is that this process can be brutal as the currency’s value is left to the
market. As usual, George Soros’s
warning needs to be taken seriously. China’s size means it certainly is
different. But this could also mean it faces a different, bigger credit unraveling or the next
financial crisis.

It’s inevitable – their economy is basically a big Ponzi scheme

Stockman, 16 - (David, financial analyst, "China’s Monumental Ponzi: Here’s How It
Unravels," David Stockman's Contra Corner, 7-15-2016,
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/chinas-monumental-ponzi-heres-how-it-
unravels/,//BR/)
China is the greatest construction boom and credit bubble in recorded history. An entire nation
of 1.3 billion has gone mad building, borrowing, speculating, scheming, cheating, lying and
stealing. The source of this demented outbreak is not a flaw in Chinese culture or character—nor
even the kind of raw greed and gluttony that afflicts all peoples in the late stages of a financial
bubble. Instead, the cause is monetary madness with a red accent. Chairman Mao was not entirely mistaken
when he proclaimed that political power flows from the end of a gun barrel-–he did subjugate a nation of one billion people based on
that principle. But it was Mr. Deng’s discovery that saved Mao’s tyrannical communist party regime from the calamity of his foolish
post-revolution economic experiments. Just in the nick of time, as China reeled from the Great Leap Forward, the
famine death of 40 million and the mass psychosis of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Deng
learned that power could be
maintained and extended from the end of a printing press. And that’s the heart of the so-called China economic
miracle. Its not about capitalism with a red accent, as the Wall Street and London gamblers have been braying for nearly two
decades; its a monumental case of monetary and credit inflation that has no parallel. At the turn
of
the century credit market debt outstanding in the US was about $27 trillion, and we’ve not been
slouches attempting to borrow our way to prosperity. Total credit market debt is now $59
trillion—-so America has been burying itself in debt at nearly a 7% annual rate. But move over
America! As the 21st century dawned, China had about $1 trillion of credit market debt outstanding, but after a blistering pace of
“borrow and build” for 14 years it now carries nearly $25 trillion. But here’s the thing: this stupendous 25X growth of debt occurred
in the context of an economic system designed and run by elderly party apparatchiks who had learned their economics from Mao’s
Little Red Book! That means there was no legitimate banking system in China—just giant state bureaus
which were run by party operatives and a modus operandi of parceling out quotas for national
credit growth from the top, and then water-falling them down a vast chain of command to the
counties, townships and villages. There have never been any legitimate financial prices in China—all interest rates and
FX rates have been pegged and regulated to the decimal point; nor has there ever been any honest accounting either—loans have
been perpetual options to extend and pretend. And, needless to say, there is no system of financial discipline based on contract law.
China’s GDP has grown by $10 trillion dollars during this century alone—that is, there has been a boom across the land that makes
the California gold rush appear pastoral by comparison. Yet in all that frenzied prospecting there
have been almost no
mistakes, busted camps, empty pans or even personal bankruptcies. When something has
occasionally gone wrong with an “investment” the prospectors have gathered in noisy crowds on
the streets and pounded their pans for relief—-a courtesy that the regime has invariably granted.
So in two short decades, China has erected a monumental Ponzi economy that is
economically rotten to the core. It has 1.5 billion tons of steel capacity, but “sell-through” demand of less than half
that amount— that is, on-going demand for sheet steel to go into cars and appliances and rebar into
replacement construction once the current pyramid building binge finally expires. The same is true for
its cement industry, ship-building, solar and aluminum industries—to say nothing of 70 million empty luxury apartments and vast
stretches of over-built highways, fast rail, airports, shopping mails and new cities. In short, the flip-side of the China’s
giant credit bubble is the most massive malinvesment of real economic resources—-labor, raw
materials and capital goods—ever known. Effectively, the country-side pig sties have been piled high with
copper inventories and the urban neighborhoods with glass, cement and rebar erections that
can’t possibly earn an economic return, but all of which has become “collateral” for even more
“loans” under the Chinese Ponzi. China has been on a wild tear heading straight for the
economic edge of the planet—-that is, monetary Terra Incognito— based on the circular principle of borrowing, building
and borrowing. In essence, it is a giant re-hypothecation scheme where every man’s “debt” become the next man’s “asset”. Thus,
local government’s have meager incomes, but vastly bloated debts based on stupendously over-valued inventories of land. Coal mine
entrepreneurs face collapsing prices and revenues, but soaring double digit interest rates on shadow banking loans collateralized by
over-valued coal reserves. Shipyards have empty order books, but vast debts collateralized by soon to be idle construction bays.
Speculators have collateralized massive stock piles of copper and iron ore at prices that are already becoming ancient history. So
China is on the cusp of the greatest margin call in history. Once asset values start falling, its
pyramids of debt will stand exposed to withering performance failures and melt-downs.
Undoubtedly the regime will struggle to keep its printing press prosperity alive for another
month or quarter, but the fractures are now gathering everywhere because the credit rampage
has been too extreme and hideous. Maybe Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate which went belly up last week is the final
catalyst, but if not there are thousands more to come. Like Mao’s gun barrel, the printing press has a “sell by” date, too Of the more
than US$562 million (RMB3.5 billion) that it owed to debtors, US$112 million was borrowed from 98 private parties with annual
interest rates of up to 36%, according to recent revelations from Chinese media. Under that kind of pressure, the only surprise is that
the default didn’t happen sooner. The company struggled to find capital for years; the chairman is suspected of borrowing up to
US$38.6 million with “fake mortgages.” But before Xingrun gets branded as China’s worst small, private homebuilder, it’s important
to understand how it ended up in the mess in the first place, and what specific factors brought the operation down, or at least to the
brink of collapse (local government officials insist it hasn’t officially defaulted yet). Xingrun’s business in Fenghua, a county-level
city that is part of Ningbo in a manufacturing belt on China’s east coast, ran into trouble through a renovation project starting in
2007, Chinese media pointed out. The company attempted, after securing government support and taking over for another
distressed local property company, to build high-rise apartment blocks in a village called Changting. The project required the
company to build homes for the original residents before the existing village could be torn down and the new buildings built.
Construction was slated to start in the first half of 2012. Xingrun projected that it could pay off its debts within three years. The
project never got to the construction phase. In fact, the small village homes are still standing. Xingrun built the replacement homes
for the villagers but there’s no sign of its main housing product, high-rises. Nothing has happened because the residents of the
village have tangled the project and the company in a lawsuit that has stretched for years. That explains why Xingrun was unable to
pay back its loans. But why has it come so close to keeling over now? Its troubles with the Changting project persisted for years but
the company simply rolled over loans and borrowed at high rates from private lenders. One problem for capital-strapped developers
in the Ningbo area is that private lenders no longer want to lend to highly risky companies. In fact, they are calling in their loans.
This is just one of the problems afflicting Xingrun. The value of property in some areas of Fenghua is decreasing and that trend has
lowered confidence in developers’ ability to pay dizzyingly high interest rates. Banks aren’t hot on lending to this kind of developer
either. In the past, a developer such as Xingrun could ask the local branch of a commercial bank for more credit. The local branch
would take that risk because loan officers there knew that, somewhere much higher up the chain, officials promoted the lending.
That support exists no longer. Now, when small developers beg local banks for credit, they will
likely be turned away. Local bank managers are reportedly being told that they may lend to risky
borrowers if they wish, but they will be held accountable. High risk is something no one seems
willing to stomach these days – in stark contrast to just a year ago. Fenghua is a small town, and Xingrun’s
reach beyond that area is limited. Analysts have come out strong in saying that such a default has little systemic risk. The bigger
picture in the region, however, can’t be ignored. Xingrun’s woes are still the woes of the local authorities. The default will add
US$305 million (RMB1.9 billion) to Fenghua province’s non-performing loan portfolio, pushing up the rate of toxic assets to 5.27%
and making it Zhejiang province’s most indebted government, according to calculations by The Economic Observer newspaper. Add
Fenghua’s problems to those of the greater Ningbo region. The area reportedly has at least six years of housing stock either sitting
empty or under construction. The massive buildout will put small developers under great pressure to pay back loans, especially if
private debtors are calling in high-interest loans. A slowdown in property prices won’t help either. Without a rescue from provincial-
level banks, Fenghua won’t be the last local government stuck in a jam.
Collapse inevitable – they’re too far gone and prolonging the collapse only makes it
worse
Valores, 16 - (Caiman, research analyst, "China's Hard Landing Increasingly Appears
Inevitable: Will It Trigger The Next Financial Crisis?," Seeking Alpha, 3-3-16,
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3950986-chinas-hard-landing-increasingly-appears-
inevitable-will-trigger-next-financial-crisis,//BR/)
Concerns over the outlook for China continue to weigh heavily on global markets and have been
a key reason for the sharp collapse in commodity prices. There are now further worries that
China is headed for a hard economic landing and it is this which is fueling much of the
volatility witnessed in recent months in global financial markets. Controversial former hedge fund manager
George Soros has gone as far as to say that a hard landing is inevitable and recent data out of China certainly supports this thesis.
Any hard landing in China will lead to a deepening of the commodities rout, greater volatility in
investment markets and worsen deflationary pressures globally, which some believe could
trigger the next financial crisis. What has precipitated this potential crisis? One of the biggest problems
facing investors is that global markets and the global economy in general became accustomed to
strong rates of economic growth among emerging markets with China being the most crucial.
Over the last two and a half decades China's GDP has grown at an average annual rate of just under 10%,
well above the growth rates of developed markets and triggered a tremendous commodities boom. This saw it become a
crucial engine of global economic growth. In fact, for the last decade alone China was responsible
for a quarter of world's growth. This boom has been labeled by some economists as a super-cycle that was fueled by
China's rapid rate of industrialization and modernization. China's rapid rate of economic growth triggered one of the greatest urban
to rural migrations in history as the promise of better wages and higher standards of living lured rural workers into the cities. In
2012, it was estimated that since 1980 over 145 million people had migrated from the country side to China's cities in search of a
better life. This in turn led to an incredible demand for housing and urban infrastructure, triggering a construction boom of
tremendous proportions that saw China's construction sector become one of the largest consumers of metals globally. Now, China
accounts for around half of the global demand for industrial metals and is now the largest importer of crude. As can be seen
the world economy leans on China as the engine of global growth. This means that any sharp
slowdown in economic growth will have a contagious impact on global markets. It is this which is
happening right now and is a key reason for the sharp collapse in commodity prices that is now being witnessed. Is a hard
landing inevitable? The latest data out of China doesn't paint a pretty picture of the outlook for the economy. The real
estate sector lays in ruin with it caught in a protracted economic slump. There are signs that it
will take years for this to improve, with China having overbuilt during the boom years which has
left it with considerable housing stock and inventories of commercial floor space. This is easy to see
with the skeletons of unfinished high rise buildings forming the back drop to the skylines of many major cities in China. Such an
event is an anecdotal sign that the construction sector is in decline and funding has become increasingly
difficult to obtain. Meanwhile, another important sector that contributes significantly to China's economic growth the
manufacturing sector saw a further decline in activity in January. For that month the manufacturing PMI fell by 40 basis points
compared to the previous month to its lowest level since 2009. This was also the seventh consecutive month where manufacturing
activity contracted. Decreasing profitability is also hurting China's industry. For 2015 industrial profits fell by 2.3% year over year
because of weak demand for China's manufacture products with key markets such as Europe also battling their own economic
problems. There are signs that this will continue, with many major global economies experiencing
weaker rates of growth primarily because of the slump in commodity prices and this will lead to
further declines in demand. This is particularly bad news for China with it having become the
factory of the world with industry accounting for over 40% of its GDP. In recent years, the level of GDP
contributed by industry has declined from a ten year high of 47% in 2005 to just over 40% in 2015. While a growing services sector
has helped to make up for this there is still a long to go with China remaining heavily dependent upon the manufacture and export of
goods as a key driver of economic growth. Furthermore, there are signs that the protracted slump in China's construction sector will
continue for some time with the rate of rural to urban migration slowing sharply in recent years. This can be attributed to decreasing
wage growth, rising costs in urban centers and lower rates of employment because of the decline in manufacturing and construction.
It means that demand for urban housing in an oversupplied market will continue to decline. While this is considerably
bad news for commodity prices with China being the largest consumer globally of iron ore, coking
coal, steel, copper, zinc and nickel, it is even worse news for China's economy. As a result of this decline
China's GDP growth in 2015 fell to 6.9% its lowest level in 25 years and it is expected to decline even further because of this sharp
slowdown in the industries that are key drivers of economic growth. For 2016 GDP growth is forecast to be 6.5% and 6.2% in 2017
with signs that this gradual decline will continue for at least a decade. Of
even greater concern is that the measures
taken by Beijing to stimulate the economy are just not working. One of the most abject failures
was Beijing's decision to devalue the Yuan which it has devalued twice in the last seven months.
While this has failed to stimulate economic growth or demand for its key exports it has triggered
a significant flight of capital.
**AFF
 NO IMPACT
They’ll crackdown --- not lash-out
Lundquist, 12 - (David, lecturer of Western philosophy at Tsinghua University in Beijing,
"Why China Won't Collapse," National Interest, 6-22-2012,
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/china-isnt-headed-collapse-7046,//BR/)
The textbook example of a similar change might be Iran’s 1979 revolution, widely thought be propelled by a dramatic fall in global oil
prices. But the Chinese economy is no oil-addicted dictatorship, and China has no Ayatollah Khomeini antagonizing it through
sermons on scratchy cassette tapes. Contrary to the banal collapse theories, there are reasons to believe that a slowing Chinese
economy will bring a chill of calm to the simmering cauldron of society. China is a modern,
complex polity with an adept, agile government. In his landmark work Political Order in Changing Societies, Samuel
Huntington argued that violence is a mark of modernizing societies. To Huntington, modernity meant three things: the government
gains recognition as the legitimate wielder of force; the division of labor is divided between military, administrators, scientists and
the judiciary; there is mass political participation, by which Huntington meant all forms of participation, be it democratic or
totalitarian (as in the Cultural Revolution). By Huntington’s standards, the PRC is a quite modern polity, one he would deem “civic”
because its institutions are developed beyond its level of political activity. In short, the system can withstand economic pressure.
Indeed, Beijing is well-prepared to confront, divert or grant concessions to popular discontent.
With firm institutions established, a state is less susceptible to economic vagaries, something Chang’s
argument doesn’t consider. By proactively heading off economic distress, the PRC might even stand to gain trust and
legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. After all, as Western governments rushed to ease the liquidity crunch of 2008–2009, baffled
and nervous citizens said nary a word of protest as unelected bureaucrats worked their money-printing and bailout magic. Only after
the crisis, years later, did diverse Occupy Wall Street movements include this as a minor detail in their failed campaign against
capitalist excesses. A faltering economy does not necessarily cause disorder, even when effective institutionsare
absent. A recent New York Times editorial opposing Western sanctions on Iran broaches this notion, arguing that the Iranian people
might stand up to oppression once well-fed and prospering. The same very well could be true for China. Reform in China There
are hundreds of thousands of conflicts between the Chinese people and the state every year. But putting aside
egregious land-grab cases like the one in the southern Chinese village of Wukan last year, they rarely rise to the level of
violence—much less regime-change—as many such events are simply labor disputes. The participants have little notion of a future
democratic China, unlike some of their middle-class counterparts, who in contrast have few material incentives to protest but much
to lose.
 AT: CHINA RISE IMPACTS
Collapse tanks the US econ
Mearsheimer, 14 - (John J., the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of
Political Science at the University of Chicago, "Can China Rise Peacefully?," National Interest,
10-25-2014, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/can-china-rise-peacefully-10204,//BR/)
Slowing down Chinese economic growth is certainly a more attractive option than nuclear war,
but it, too, is not feasible. The main problem is that there is no practical way of slowing the
Chinese economy without also damaging the American economy. One might argue that the
Chinese economy would suffer greater damage, thus improving America’s relative power
position vis-à-vis China at the same time Chinese growth was slackening. But that is likely to happen only if the
United States can find new trading partners and China cannot. Both conditions are necessary.
Unfortunately, many countries around the world would be eager to increase their economic
intercourse with China, thus filling the vacuum created by Washington’s efforts to cut back its
trade with and investment in China. For example, the countries in Europe, which would not be seriously threatened by
China, would be prime candidates to take America’s place and continue fueling Chinese economic growth. In short, because
China cannot be isolated economically, the United States cannot slow its economic growth in
any meaningful way.
 COLLAPSE NOT INEV
There are challenges which strain the economy, but it is not inevitable (probably
cuts against the aff uq)
Quah, 1-22-16 - (Danny, Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of
Economics and Political Science (LSE), Professor of Economics and International Development at LSE and Tan Chin
Tuan visiting professor at the National University of Singapore, served as a council member on Malaysia’s National
Economic Advisory Council and as a consultant for the Bank of England, the World Bank and the Monetary Authority
of Singapore, "China’s Economy is Not Collapsing," Fair Observer,
http://www.fairobserver.com/region/asia_pacific/chinas-economy-not-collapsing-42301/,//BR/)
China’s economy will not grow at double-digit rates forever, but the Asian giant is
not collapsing. For three decades now, many of the world’s most insightful observers have predicted
the imminent demise of China’s system. But these same three decades have also seen China
confound expectations. China’s economy turned in double-digit growth rates. China lifted 600 million
people out of poverty. While 35 years ago China’s per capita income was only $300 (just 2% that of US per capita GDP) and 800 million Chinese lived
in extreme poverty, today it boasts more US dollar billionaires than any other country. But
is its much-expected collapse finally
at hand? The first week of 2016 sent alarming signals. One respected financial analyst in London voiced what many
others thought: “So far, China in 2016 appears to be everyone’s worst nightmare come true.” The reasoning that predicts China’s collapse has two bases.
“CHINA’S SYSTEM IS DIFFERENT” First is the long-standing view that China’s system differs
from what has worked everywhere else. China couples to free-market capitalism a degree of
political control many observers consider incompatible with sustained growth. The mix might
have worked—so the reasoning goes—for the last however many decades, but as a matter of logic
the system cannot continue. Observers advance this hypothesis on a sliding scale, beginning at one extreme with the view that liberal
democracy is the only solution to the fundamental problems of human history, through to how “authoritarian capitalism” (a description typically
applied to Singapore’s system) might succeed for a time, but cannot endure. Every gyration in China’s economy is, then, evidence on the contradictions
of capitalist China. On asset markets in particular, these writers contrast Chinese leaders’ proclivity for control with how these markets need to be self-
regulating and free. Notwithstanding all the obvious benefits to people of individual freedoms, whether entire nations perform better when their
citizens have untrammeled free choice is a proposition with neither mathematical proof nor definitive empirical support. No generalization exists of the
Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics that might allow convincing pronouncement on the optimality of free political outcomes. Winston
Churchill once quipped that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others that have been tried. But H.L. Mencken noted:
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” As a matter of analytical logic, it is Mencken’s that convinces. What of
empirical evidence? In
the world at large, economies obtain social outcomes through different
combinations of states and markets. Singapore’s mix of political intervention and free markets brought it from a poor British
colony with no natural resources to first-world per capita GDP. In the West, no advanced economy practices the extreme market fundamentalism that
allows financial markets to be only self-regulating and free. Or if any had done so before, exactly zero did so after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
Political freedoms matter ultimately for economic success. This is hypothesis, not fact. China’s
own pathway to development differs from that elsewhere. But, in this writer’s view, it is more prejudice than science
that dismisses, on that basis, China’s economy as doomed to fail. CHINA’S SLOWING ECONOMY AND ITS MOST RECENT CRISES The second
basis for predicting imminent collapse, for many observers, is China’s cycle of economic and
financial crises. Just the most recent of these came during the first week of 2016. After the financial market volatility of
summer 2015, China’s regulators had announced circuit-breakers to be installed in the new year.
When the market shifts more than 5%, trading halts for 15 minutes—more than 7% suspends trading for the day. Awkward for China’s regulators was
that on the first day of operation their circuit-breakers had shut down the market by 1pm. Then, only three days later, on January 7, the market was
again forced to close, this time just 29 minutes after the morning opening. Two other developments fueled unease. In December
2015, China’s foreign exchange reserves fell a record $108 billion, ending a year that saw their first ever annual decline. Reserves were down 17% since
their June 2014 peak to $3.33 trillion—China was burning through foreign exchange reserves to defend its currency. Even so, the renminbi fell 6%
against the US dollar over 2015, showing markets’ lack of confidence in China’s economic future. The
other large concern on
observers’ minds was China’s slowing real economy. A long way now from showing double-digit
growth, China’s GDP was widely expected to turn in perhaps only 6.9% expansion over 2015.
While this growth rate would be the envy of any other large economy, it would also be China’s
lowest for 25 years. Many observers have quickly drawn from these signals deeper questions.
Given China’s assured economic policymaking since 1990, why this sequence of missteps? Is
President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of political power drawing focus away from economics? Has China returned to a Maoist era with ideology back in
control? How well-designed are China’s policy mechanisms for its now-modern economy, no longer agricultural and enjoying smooth, easy
urbanization? Are China’s policymakers credible and competent, now that the economy needs to transform in a hurry from low value-added
manufacturing to higher-tech, knowledge-intensive activity? For
these observers, all indicators point in one direction:
China’s downturn will be significant. The only question is how hard the landing will be. “WELL,
MAYBE NO …” Is this analysis correct? Sure, no large mature economy grows faster than 3% a
year for any significant duration. So too will China at some point. But is that time now? Perhaps not.
First, consider the significance to the real economy of China’s slowing growth rate. Recall that in 2005 China’s GDP amounted to $2.3 trillion. At a 12%
growth rate then, China generated an increase in real economic value of $274 billion. In 2015, however, China’s GDP came to $11.3 trillion. A 7%
growth in this economy increases value by $790 billion—i.e., almost three times that a decade ago during China’s halcyon days of economic growth. A
7% growth is no meltdown. And if productivity were to grow as in 2013, 7% growth in today’s China will generate 53 million new jobs. Steep challenges
lie ahead. China’s pile of debt is a tricky mix of privatized, local governmental and national obligations, and there remains considerable uncertainty how
this debt hangover will work out. At the end of 2015, China’s non-manufacturing PMI stood at 54.4, a 16-month high. Perhaps the low manufacturing
PMI correctly signals a dramatic slowdown. Or it might simply show China navigating its structural transition. Next, take China’s currency. Against the
US dollar, the renminbi has indeed slid 6% since August 2015. But measured against a basket of trade-weighted currencies, China’s currency never
dipped below its January 2015 level all last year. Between 2006 and 2015, China’s currency appreciated 20% against the US dollar and 22% against the
euro. The BIS reckons that since 2010, China’s currency has soared 30% against its major trading partners. Factoring in inflation, the renminbi real
exchange rate strengthened more than 50% in the last decade. This is no currency in distress. But numbers form only part of the
story here. The world flip-flops constantly in what it asks of China’s exchange rate policy. On the one
hand, observers worry how China spent half a trillion dollars of reserves supporting the renminbi. On the other hand, if China hadn’t done
so but instead permitted the renminbi to fall, outcries of competitive devaluation would have
deafened. In August 2015, China followed advice from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and allowed each morning’s exchange rate fix to
hew to the previous evening’s close—i.e., to be more market-oriented. Global markets promptly panicked and charged China with depreciating its
currency to bolster manufacturing exports. It’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Finally, take China’s stock markets. Equity markets, in
theory, reflect the best forecast of the future profits stream in business enterprises. This results from the agglomerated action of many, many investors
trading on new information they are expertly interpreting. So, in theory, when equities decline, bad times beckon. But what of China’s stock markets?
These are thin, with most of the relatively few participants only retail investors. One astute observer noted last week: “China’s stock market is easy to
understand. It’s a casino. There are winners. There are losers. Luck is in charge. It’s never had anything to do with the real economy.” Yet another
writer, following last summer’s stock market gyrations, observed: “China’s market is … detached from fundamentals. It neither contributed much to
economic growth while it was rising, nor threatened the economy when it collapsed.” (Indeed, even for advanced economies, Paul Samuelson famously
quipped in 1962 that Wall Street was so good at prediction, it had been able to forecast nine out the last five US recessions.) China’s government has
learned from advanced economies that business should raise more financing from equity markets, and that those markets can offer attractive options to
consumers otherwise bereft of high-yielding savings opportunities. But China’s financial markets remain woefully underdeveloped. Do their vagaries
reflect this lack of maturity—observed across most of Asia’s developing economies—or inept policymaking? Likely both, but not primarily the latter.
What about China’s circuit-breaker system? Its function is to give pause to excessive movement in markets driven by panic selling or faddish
enthusiasm. That seems sensible, but any such system carries at least two design faults. First, it prevents immediate recovery, and second, it
incentivizes panic selling once the market is visibly headed down. Were China’s circuit breakers fundamentally ill-judged? China’s system did not
appear out of nowhere. Following China’s stock market gyrations last summer, a system was proposed in September, after which policymakers sought
and accepted input from market participants for its final design. A similar system had been put in place in the US after October 1987. As no circuit-
breaker can come without those two faults previously described, it cannot be the logic of the design that accounts for the difference between a successful
US system and a failed Chinese one. Instead, the explanation must lie only in the parameters chosen. The US system has thresholds that, relative to
American stock markets, would have kicked in only three times since the 1930s. And what of China’s circuit-breaker parameters? Given China’s
markets, its circuit-breakers, had they then been in place, would have tripped 20 times between June and August 2015. China’s circuit-breaker errors
were not anything deep in logic or politics, merely in numerical parameters. NO
MELTDOWN Indeed, recent events in
China’s economic trajectory have set off alarm bells for many observers. But these same
incidents, set against a slightly more textured background, are actually nuanced in their
implications. China is not imminently in meltdown. None of this is to say China’s
economy will continue growing at double-digit rates forever. Nor does it argue that China’s
policymakers have consistently done the right things. But neither are those policymakers
obviously guilty of incompetence or excessive interventionism. Steep challenges lie ahead.
China’s pile of debt is a tricky mix of privatized, local governmental and national obligations,
and there remains considerable uncertainty how this debt hangover will work out. China’s industrial
restructuring, its anti-corruption campaign, its transition past the Lewis Turning Point and out of the middle-income trap, and its environmental and
demographic challenges all remain daunting. These
challenges are substantive and long-term, and China’s
policymakers will have to deal with them in a properly measured and considered way.
MULTILAT BAD
**NEG
 1NC - GENERIC
Multilateral strats trade off with unilateral practices – mutually exclusive
strategies
James Helis 4 – (Rear Admiral (United States), is the 12th Superintendent of the United States
Merchant Marine Academy (“MULTILATERALISM AND UNILATERALISM,” 2004,
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-usawc/strategy2004/02helis.pdf) hk
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the United States enjoys a historically unprecedented
accumulation of national power. The American economy is the largest in the world and even in a slowdown far outstrips
that of any other nation.3 The prowess of Americaís armed forces has been demonstrated
again and again, from Kosovo to Afghanistan to Iraq. In 2002, the United States accounted for 43 percent of the worldís
military spending, more than the total of the next fourteen together.4 Projected increases in American military spending will likely
lead to the United States spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined, and the training and technological
superiority of Americaís armed forces provide a quantum advantage that no nation is likely to even approach in the near to medium
term. The combination of overwhelming economic and military power gives the United States
enormous political influence throughout the world. There are few, if any, global issues that can be addressed or
resolved without U.S. support and cooperation. One central debate in U.S. foreign policy has been the degree
to which the United States should be involved in the affairs of the world. World War II and the Cold War
seemed to settle the question of isolationism or engagement in favor of the latter. After the Cold War, the issue of isolationism rose
again, but only briefly. The real post-Cold War debate was and remains over the degree to which the United States should pursue its
foreign policy alone or in partnership with other states. The debate has been framed in terms of
multilateralism versus unilateralism and is heavily influenced by competing views
on what the United States should do with its position of preeminent international power and influence. In one
sense, ìthe differences [between the two views] are a matter of degree, and there are few pure unilateralists or multilateralists.î5
However, there are clear differences between the two schools of thought on when and
to what extent the United States should work with others. We should keep in mind that
unilateralism and multilateralism are not strategies. Strategy is about matching ends, means, and ways. Unilateralism and
multilateralism are competing ways to approach problems. This chapter will examine the advantages and
disadvantages offered by each approach. The goal is to identify those conditions under which it is better to work with others through
coalitions and alliances and when it is might be best go it alone.

Unilateral power key to litany of things

Paula Dobriansky 15 - served as under secretary of state for global affairs from 2001 to 2009.
She is a senior fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs. (“We Asked Paula J. Dobriansky: What Should Be
the Purpose of American Power?” The National Interest, August 25, 2015,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/we-asked-paula-j-dobriansky-what-should-be-the-purpose-
13678) hk
The purpose of American power, which includes military, economic, diplomatic, ideological, legal and cultural
components, is to protect the entire range of our national-security interests. While we face many pressing
domestic challenges, America cannot afford to focus on them alone. Americans cannot be secure and prosperous without a stable,
rule-driven international order. Terrorism, refugee flows, pandemic diseases, pollution,
cyberattacks, economic decay, nuclear proliferation and military aggression can
directly threaten our security and prosperity even when they arise overseas. We cannot
handle these threats successfully in an ad hoc fashion. American power must be continuously applied to maintain political, military
and economic international institutions and alliances that, with effective U.S. leadership, can safeguard global stability, economic
growth and the rule of law. This does not mean that every foreign dispute or fight concerns us. But we must counter
fundamental assaults on the existing global liberal order. This task is particularly crucial today, since the post–
Cold War international framework is under attack by numerous challenges, including Islamic fundamentalism, growing Sunni-Shia
strife, Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and become the preeminent power in the Middle East, Russian revanchism, and
China’s efforts to exercise dominion over Asia and strong-arm its neighbors. In addition to these hard-power threats, the world faces
numerous humanitarian crises, ranging from famines, environmental devastation and extreme weather events to flows of refugees
and displaced persons. While the United States cannot solve all of these problems, consistent with our moral values, it has been a
world leader in rendering humanitarian assistance and helping to alleviate poverty worldwide. America must always
retain the ability, when necessary, to use its power unilaterally. However, the United States
has been most successful when it has worked with international institutions and alliances, partnering with like-minded countries
and combining their resources and capabilities with our own. Furthermore, the best way to deal with potential
international threats is to deter them from arising or at least defeat them before they become
acute. This requires continuous American leadership and credibility, especially in upholding our
international commitments, to reassure our allies and deter our enemies.

Heg k2 terrorism and climate change

Brooks &Wohlforth 16 - (Stephen G, Associate Professor of Government @Dartmouth, William C, Daniel Webster
Prof of Government @Dartmouth, May/June 2016 , https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-13/once-and-
future-superpower?cid=nlc-fatoday-
20160520&sp_mid=51424540&sp_rid=c2NvdHR5cDQzMUBnbWFpbC5jb20S1&spMailingID=51424540&spUserID=MTg3NTEzO
TE5Njk2S0&spJobID=922513469&spReportId=OTIyNTEzNDY5S0
Lasting preeminence will help the United States ward off the greatest traditional international
danger, war between the world’s major powers. And it will give Washington options for dealing
with nonstate threats such as terrorism and transnational challenges such as climate
change. But it will also impose burdens of leadership and force choices among competing priorities, particularly as finances
grow more straitened. With great power comes great responsibility, as the saying goes, and playing its leading role
successfully will require Washington to display a maturity that U.S. foreign policy has all too often lacked.

Climate change and nuclear war cause extinction

Jürgen Scheffran 16 - Professor at the Institute for Geography at the University of Hamburg
and head of the Research
Group Climate Change and Security in the CliSAP Cluster of Excellence and the Center for Earth
System Research and Sustainability
(CEN). He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Marburg University and has worked at Technical
University of Darmstadt, the
Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research and the University of Illinois (“THE CLIMATE-
NUCLEAR NEXUS,” 2016, http://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/IMG/pdf/worldfuturecouncil-
scheffranj-2016-the_climate-nuclear_nexus.pdf) hk
Climate change and nuclear weapons represent two key threats of our time. Climate
change endangers ecosystems and social systems all over the world. The degradation of natural
resources, the decline of water and food supplies, forced migration, and more frequent and
intense disasters will greatly affect population clusters, big and small. Climate-related shocks will add
stress to the world’s existing conflicts and act as a “threat multiplier” in already fragile regions. This could
contribute to a decline of international stability and trigger hostility between
people and nations. Meanwhile, the 15,500 nuclear weapons that remain in the arsenals of only a few
states possess the destructive force to destroy life on Earth as we know multiple times over. With nuclear
deterrence strategies still in place, and hundreds of weapons on ‘hair trigger alert’, the risks of nuclear
war caused by accident, miscalculation or intent remain plentiful and imminent.
Despite growing recognition that climate change and nuclear weapons pose critical security risks, the linkages
between both threats are largely ignored. However, nuclear and climate risks interfere with each other in a
mutually enforcing way. Conflicts induced by climate change could contribute to global insecurity,
which, in turn, could enhance the chance of a nuclear weapon being used, could create more
fertile breeding grounds for terrorism, including nuclear terrorism, and could feed the
ambitions among some states to acquire nuclear arms. Furthermore, as evidenced by a series of
incidents in recent years, extreme weather events, environmental degradation and major seismic
events can directly impact the safety and security of nuclear installations. Moreover, a nuclear
war could lead to a rapid and prolonged drop in average global temperatures and
significantly disrupt the global climate for years to come, which would have disastrous
implications for agriculture, threatening the food supply for most of the world. Finally, climate change,
nuclear weapons and nuclear energy pose threats of intergenerational harm, as evidenced by the
transgenerational effects of nuclear testing and nuclear power accidents and the lasting impacts
on the climate, environment and public health by carbon emissions.
 2NC – GENERIC HEG KEY
Heg is key to deal with current security dilemmas
Brooks & Wohlforth 16 - (Stephen G, Associate Professor of Government @Dartmouth, William C, Daniel Webster
Prof of Government @Dartmouth, May/June 2016 , https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-13/once-and-
future-superpower?cid=nlc-fatoday-
20160520&sp_mid=51424540&sp_rid=c2NvdHR5cDQzMUBnbWFpbC5jb20S1&spMailingID=51424540&spUserID=MTg3NTEzO
TE5Njk2S0&spJobID=922513469&spReportId
For a largely satisfied power leading the international system, having enough strength to deter or block
challengers is in fact more valuable than having the ability to improve one’s position
further on the margins. A crucial objective of U.S. grand strategy over the decades has been to
prevent a much more dangerous world from emerging, and its success in this endeavor can be measured largely
by the absence of outcomes common to history: important regions destabilized by severe security
dilemmas, tattered alliances unable to contain breakout challengers, rapid
weapons proliferation, great-power arms races, and a descent into competitive
economic or military blocs. A world of lasting U.S. military preeminence and declining U.S. economic dominance
will test the United States’ capacity for restraint. Were Washington to truly pull back from the world,
more of these challenges would emerge, and transnational threats would likely
loom even larger than they do today. Even if such threats did not grow, the task of addressing them would
become immeasurably harder if the United States had to grapple with a much less stable global order at the same time. And as
difficult as it sometimes is today for the United States to pull together coalitions to address
transnational challenges, it would be even harder to do so if the country abdicated its leadership
role and retreated to tend its garden, as a growing number of analysts and policymakers—and a
large swath of the public—are now calling for.
 2NC – GENERIC COOPERATION

Their characterization of cooperation creates security commitments which trades

off with U.S. focus on tons of stuff
Jeremi Suri & Benjamin Valentino 16 – Jeremi is a Distinguished Professor for Global
Leadership, History, and Public Policy, University of Texas at Austin and Benjamin is an
Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College (“Sustainable Security: Rethinking
American National Security Strategy,” 2016,
http://tobinproject.org/sites/tobinproject.org/files/assets/Sustainable%20Security%20-
%20All%20Chapters.pdf) hk
The costs of America’s commitments, of course, are not merely economic. Although our alliances
were initially formed to deter conflict, many of America’s overseas commitments also have the
potential to draw the United States into wars it would prefer to avoid. The recent crisis in
Ukraine reinforces this point. If Ukraine were indeed part of NATO, as some have advocated, the United States
would have an obligation to join a potential war between Ukraine and Russia, even if leaders in Washington questioned American
interests in that conflict. A similar dynamic exists in Asia, where Japan’s actions in the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands threaten to draw the
United States into a war against China. Extended security commitments quickly become unsustainable
when regional conflicts call in American guarantees. Although alliances are essential for
effective multilateralism, they can be dangerous and even self-defeating if they become
permanent and axiomatic. When the United States promises to ensure the security and welfare
of countries, it also encourages free riding, and sometimes even reckless behavior. This has been
evident throughout the Middle East, East Asia, and South Asia during the last decade. Permanent alliances also complicate relations
with major powers like Russia and China, who perceive themselves as permanent adversaries for these alliances. That
perception makes cooperation with the United States on critical issues like trade,
arms control, humanitarian intervention, and regional conflict more difficult. These
costs are perhaps worth paying, but only if they are outweighed by benefits afforded by existing alliances. Weighing costs and
benefits, and contemplating shifts in alliance commitments, is an exercise we have ignored for much too long.
 2NC – MULTILAT
Clear trade-off between unilateralism and multilateralism
James Helis 4 - Rear Admiral (United States), is the 12th Superintendent of the
United States Merchant Marine Academy (“MULTILATERALISM AND
UNILATERALISM,” 2004, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army-
usawc/strategy2004/02helis.pdf) hk
The perceptions and reality of the extent to which the United States pursues unilateralist
policies will undoubtedly affect Americaís strategic choices in the future. There are clear
trade-offs between sacrificing freedom of action and lowering costs and adding the
capabilities of other nations. Considering these tradeoffs should be part of the strategic
decisionmaking process for the United States as it wages a GWOT and confronts a range of critical global interests
and issues. The United States cannot limit its options by clinging to notions about whether it should act unilaterally or multilaterally.
There are times and circumstances for both approaches. The art is to recognize them and select the proper tool.
 IMPACT - CYBER

Cyber attacks decimates the international order

Ashok Vaseashta et al 16 – Ashok: Norwich University Applied Research Institutes, USA &
Molecular Science Research Center, Sherri B. Vaseashta: Trident Technical College, USA and
Eric W. Braman: Norwich University Applied Research Institutes, USA (“Mitigating
Unconventional Cyber-Warfare: Scenario of Cyber 9/11,” 2016, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8793-
6.ch012) hk
Securing digital assets is an extremely difficult and strategic challenge worldwide that requires the latest technology, cooperation
between the public and private sector, military and civilian education and training, and legal and policy framework (Vaseashta,
Susmann, & Braman, 2014). Unfortunately, cyber-crime and cyber–terrorism are on the rise and the
perpetrators operate in shadows and without boundaries. This is compounded by the fact that the world today
relies on the interconnectivity and cyber-criminals exploit everyone’s basic necessity for their own personal gain – may it be
financial, vengeance, or gaining personal notoriety or thrills. The threat of a catastrophic cyber-attack
is
very real. Attacks are currently taking place and the annual cost of cyber-crime worldwide has
climbed to more than $1 trillion globally.” All aspects of our society have become
increasingly dependent on the Internet, may it be personal, the government, the military or businesses -
both small and large. While in most cases this powerful technology has transformed our daily lives for the better, unfortunately bad
actors – from common criminals to foreign terrorists - have identified cyberspace as a realm for a cyber-caliphate that are (mis-)
used as recruiting venues for the 21st century battlefield. The New York Times reported that a speech delivered by United States
Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta warned that … the United States was facing the possibility of a
“cyber-Pearl Harbor” and was increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could dismantle the nation’s
power grid, transportation system, financial networks and government. In another speech at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space
Museum in New York, An aggressor nation or extremist group could use these kinds of cyber tools to
gain control of critical switches. Mr. Panetta said. They could derail passenger trains, or even
more dangerous, derail passenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals. They could contaminate
the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country.
Mr. Panetta painted a dire picture of how such an attack on the United States might unfold, while reacting to increasing aggression
and technological advances by the nation’s top adversaries, which officials identified as China, Russia, Iran and several militant
groups out of the middle-east. This opens a potential Cyber 9/11 scenario – which will have a
crippling effect on the economy, societal distress, and associated loss of human lives. We have to take
steps now to modernize our approach and develop a strategy to protecting this valuable, but vulnerable, resource. We also have to
balance our need for security in this new technological frontier against our need to protect our democratic values of privacy, freedom
and liberty.
 IMPACT - DISEASE
Their D doesn’t assume our impact – changes in habitats means that pathogens
constantly adapt
Eco-Business 15 – (“Climate change opens new doors to deadly diseases”,24 February 2015,
http://www.eco-business.com/news/climate-change-opens-new-doors-deadly-diseases/) hk
Zoologists Daniel Brooks, of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Eric Hoberg, of the US National Parasite Collection, argue in
the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society that changes in climate will mean changes in habitat. And changes in
habitat will mean that animals are exposed to new pathogens – anything that causes a disease – and
parasites. It follows that humans will increasingly be exposed to epidemics of new diseases never
encountered before on such a scale. But it will not, Professor Brooks says, be like the plot of the 1971 science fiction
movie, The Andromeda Strain, about a single deadly global infection. “There are going to be a lot of localised outbreaks putting
pressure on medical and veterinary health systems,” he says. “It will be the death of a thousand cuts.”
Infectious microbes evolved to survive in a natural host, occasionally spreading to
a new host. The assumption has been that because evolution is a gradual process, new host infections would be rare. But
microbes have turned out to be much more resourceful. When humans hunted capuchin and spider monkeys out of existence in
Costa Rica, their parasites switched promptly to the local howler monkeys. In the Canadian Arctic, as temperature patterns changed,
lungworms have moved northward and switched hosts from caribou to musk oxen. The implication is that
pathogens are more versatile and opportunistic than anyone had predicted. In which
case, humans are likely to see more emerging infectious diseases as conditions change. The two
scientists propose a “fundamental conceptual shift” in thinking about disease. “Even though a parasite might have a
very specialised relationship with one particular host in one particular place, there are other
hosts that may be as susceptible,” Professor Brooks says. Resistance could evolve too, but this would then mean that the
pathogen became a chronic disease problem, rather than an acute one.

[Include impact D]
 IMPACT – ASIAN PROLIF
Asia pivot demanded more unilateral action – any trade-offs destroy security
strategies in Asia
Jeremi Suri & Benjamin Valentino 16 – Jeremi is a Distinguished Professor for
Global Leadership, History, and Public Policy, University of Texas at Austin and
Benjamin is an Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
(“Sustainable Security: Rethinking American National Security Strategy,” 2016,
http://tobinproject.org/sites/tobinproject.org/files/assets/Sustainable%20Securit
y%20-%20All%20Chapters.pdf) hk
Despite the enormous influence of Gates, Panetta, and Mullen, these figures failed to make serious headway on reform. American
policy-makers in the Bush and Obama administrations were more cautious about intervening in foreign
conflicts after long frustrating months of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they have not shown any serious willingness to
reduce costly inherited commitments around the world. If anything, the “Asian pivot” has created a new
obligation to increase the American land, sea, and air presence in Asia, while maintaining
military hegemony in the Persian Gulf, Western Europe, and all major waterways around the globe. Civil wars and territorial
disputes throughout East and South Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East threaten to suck in further American military forces,
based on security guarantees that the United States has inherited, in some cases, from the early years of the Cold War. Resource
pressures demand some degree of American retrenchment, but political calculations push
policy-makers to avoid all the difficult trade-offs. Without attention to tradeoffs, there can be no
coherent strategy.

[Insert Asian prolif !]

 IMPACT - TERRORISM
US Counter-terror efforts key to curb terrorism
Johnston & Sarbahi 16 – Patrick Johnston is a political scientist at the RAND
Corporation and Anoop Sarbahi is part of the Political Science department at the
University of Minnesota (“The Impact of US Drone Strikes on Terrorism in
Pakistan,” International Studies Quarterly (2016) 0, 1–17) hk
A systematic data analysis reveals that drone strikes have successfully curbed deadly
terrorist attacks within the tar- geted territory in Pakistan. Specifically, our study finds that drone strikes
are associated with substantial short- term reductions in terrorist violence along four key di- mensions.
First, drone strikes are generally associated with a reduction in the rate of terrorist
attacks. Second, drone strikes are also associated with a reduction in the number of people killed
as a result of terrorist attacks (i.e. the le- thality of attacks). Third, drone strikes are linked to de- creases in
selective targeting of tribal elders, who terrorist groups frequently see as colluding with the
enemy and im- peding the pursuit of their agenda. Fourth, we find that this reduction in terrorism
is not the result of militants leaving unsafe areas and conducting attacks elsewhere in the region.
On the contrary, we find evidence that there is a small violence-reducing effect in areas near those that drones strike. This article,
however, only studies short- term changes over a few weeks in terrorist violence, and our findings do not provide a basis to conclude
that the effects of drone strikes on these measures of terrorist vio- lence extend beyond the week during which they take place. Taken
together, these findings suggest that despite their unpopularity, drone strikes do affect terrorist activi- ties; we
should not summarily dismiss claims that drones aid US counterterrorism efforts in Pakistan.

Terrorism extremely likely in the context of South Asia

Shameer Modongal 16 - Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament
(CIPOD), School of International Studies (SIS), JNU, New Delhi, India (“Deterrence of nuclear
terrorism in the context of South Asia,” 23 Mar 2016, DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2016.1160488) hk
Western countries face the threat of nuclear terrorism from transnational actors such as Al-Qaida, which is
based mainly in the Middle East and South Asia. To conduct an attack on Western countries, they have to
achieve a high level of nuclear-delivering tech- nology. It is not easy to bring nuclear material to
USA, for example, in a suitcase and attack it there. Nuclear materials are not easy to hide or move and it certainly is not easy to
deliver a bomb or nuclear device to a target, even if one could be fabricated or stolen. Due to the radiation of nuclear material, it is
difficult to transfer it through airports. Adam Garfinkle says that: Some of the more imaginative depictions of potential catastrophe
would have us believe that terrorists could put a nuclear bomb in a suitcase. This is nonsense. You have got to be very sophisticated
technically to get a nuke into a suitcase. If you are al Qaida working in a cave somewhere, even if you have some metallurgy experts
and scientists trying to help you, getting a nuclear device into a suitcase is even less likely than being able to launch Osama bin
Laden into orbit. But the case of South Asia is completely different. India and Pakistan are
neighboring states; both are nuclear capable and have fought many wars since independence. The
clash of inter- est over Kashmir is still going on. After the nuclear tests of 1998, there was stability through mutual deterrence in the
region. But the presence of terrorists groups is a major threat to South Asian nuclear
stability. Pakistan is the epicenter of many terrorist groups fighting against India. In the last decade,
terrorist attacks in Delhi and Mumbai worsened relations between neighbors and led to military escalation. The beginning of the
First World War was the assassination of Franz Joseph Ferdinand of Austria a by terrorist group located in Serbia. When Austria
demanded control over Serbian territory to deal with the terrorists, Serbia rejected the offer (because its military leader was the
leader of a secret terrorist group13). South Asia also fears such an escalation between India and Pakistan.
Since many terrorist groups are against the nation-state system, they are not concerned for the
survival of Paki- stan or a war between India and Pakistan. Sometime in the future they may even welcome it
because they can use it to unite Islamic countries against India. They could also consider the possibility of a strong Pakistan State
that would be a threat to their ideology and existence due to the role of Pakistan in the war on terror. The possibility of
nuclear terrorism in South Asia is higher than anywhere else. Because of the Pakistan
Intelligent Agency’s support, many terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e- Taiba, and Jaish-e-Muhammed, have conducted a proxy war
against India. They may have even received a transfer of nuclear technology. Since India is near to Pakistan, there is
no need for long distance delivery system to attack in India. These terrorist groups can attack
Indian nuclear plants. Both India and Pakistan have transferred a list of nuclear facilities to each
other and made an agreement not to attack them. But if Paki- stan transfers this list to any
terrorist group, they can attack Indian nuclear facilities using conventional
weapons. Due to the nuclear capability of Pakistan, India is limited when considering a preventive attack on terrorists located
in Pakistan territory. Conclusion During the Cold War, the nuclear capabilities of the major powers led to the stability of the
international system and the avoidance of major wars. Nuclear states have not fought each other in a major war even by using
conventional weapons for fear of escalation to a nuclear war. Today, terrorist groups have become a major
threat to the existing Nation-State system. Some states are using them for proxy wars in
other states. The situation of South Asia is more critical due to the presence of two nuclear powers and
the relationship of the Pakistan Intelligent Agency with non-state actors fighting against India. Since India and Pakistan are
neighboring countries, terrorists can conduct a nuclear attack on India comparatively more easily than anywhere else.
Conventional ways of terrorist attack also may escalate into a war between the two nuclear
powers, India and Pakistan. The threat of nuclear terrorism in South Asia is higher than to any
Western state or anywhere else.

[Include Impact D]
**AFF
 AT: NO IMPACT TO HEG
No impact to heg - multiple cycles of rebalancing power disprove
Klieman 15- professor of Political Science at Tel-Aviv University with a PhD in IR from Johns
Hopkins (Aharon,“Pushing Back: The Balance and Balancing of Power,” published in the book
“Great Powers and Geopolitics,”2015, pg. 11-29)
The purpose of this essay has not been to reinvent the balance of power but to refine the concept, making it possible to reach several
main conclusions. First and foremost, we are nowhere near the “one world” Kishori Mahbubani18 and others profess to see as the
“new global civilization”. Yet, by the same token, the global order is not breaking down or coming
apart; nor is the cause of global governance orphaned. Even were the so-called “disengagers” in the
United States policy establishment to carry through on their pledge—or threat—to pull back and to pursue a less activist strategy in
foreign affairs while putting America’s own house in order. Rather, the 2015 global order—pronounced “’good
enough’ global governance” by one blogist19—is correcting itself by redressing the bipolar and
unipolar imbalances of power lasting nearly seven decades. Ours is indeed a multipolar moment.
Geopolitically, the playing field of balancing politics is becoming increasingly less exclusive and far more crowded, made so by
additional stakeholders vying among themselves for higher status and greater leverage. Consequently, the balance of power,
and with it the chances for a more stable world, are no longer simply a question of the presence
of a solitary “peer competitor” but of comparatively smaller yet determined nations nipping and
sniping at the greater powers. A large-scale realignment being shaped, if you will, by America and Europe scaling back
and all the others pushing back. This insight is corroborated by the significant restructuring of the global order now underway. The
trend is decidedly from a strictly hierarchical system, ending in a single apex at the top of the pyramid, to a flatter, more
decentralized and egalitarian one, broadened in the middle by a growing number of middle-tier powers. Multiple balancing
can have a healthy leveling effect when stirred by selfinterest and permitted to function freely,
unfettered save for the commonality of shared insecurity and the imperative of survival. Framed in
these terms, the great global project now at hand is how to prevent exchanging one extreme for another: distancing ourselves from
the pole of over-concentration only to swing too far in the opposite direction of international lawlessness . During this latest,
current transformative phase in world history, the leveling and diffusion of power will continue.
It will be marked, inter alia, • by the salience of trade blocs and regional security regimes such as
ASEAN; • by the impressive rise of developing nations with growing importance for the global economy, like China, India,
Indonesia, and South Africa; and • by the assertiveness of confident regional actors like Brazil, Qatar and Turkey, benefiting
geopolitically from location, size or resources.
 AT: TERRORISM IMPACT

Terrorists can’t get a bomb and deterrence efforts fail

Shameer Modongal 16 - Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament
(CIPOD), School of International Studies (SIS), JNU, New Delhi, India (“Deterrence of nuclear
terrorism in the context of South Asia,” 23 Mar 2016, DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2016.1160488) hk
The rationality requirement in any deterrence strategy is often challenged when terrorist actors are the opponent. A core assumption
of rationality in nuclear deterrence is that actors seek self-preservation. The nature of terrorists and their ideologies are different
from state government’s rationality. Two main issues are: are the terrorists rational? And if they are, can they be deterred? Terrorists
are widely seen as irrational and ideologi- cally and emotionally motivated people. Nevertheless, they are also understood to be
rational, there is a hierarchy in their objectives and they are not dying without any purpose. Furthermore, the terrorist leaders
can be differentiated from individual bombers. The main purpose for leaders of transnational anti-state groups
such as Al- Qaida is to establish an Ummah (Islamic community) over nation-states under one Caliph; individual bombers are ready
to die to get glory in life after death. Their rationality and preferences are different from that of states. The purpose of many
domestic terrorist groups is to create their own Islamic State; consequently, many of them are treated as freedom fighters like
Hamas or The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. To deter transnational anti-state groups becomes difficult
because they have no “return address,” no assets to protect, or indication of who may actually
want to die. The difficulty of deterring terrorists arises due to the strong asymmetry of the
situation; there is no acceptable limit to terrorist violence other than zero. Co-existence is no incentive to
either side. The individual suicide bomber can hardly be deterred by threats of violence since he is already on a death mission. US
National Security Strategy states that, “Tra- ditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy.”10 Former US
Vice President Dick Cheney expressed a similar view at the Heritage Foundation in October 2003, “The strategy of
deterrence, which served us well during the decades of the Cold War, no longer does. Our
terrorist enemy has no country to defend, no assets to destroy in order to discourage an
attack.”11 Among academicians and strategic thinkers, different ways to counter nuclear terror- ism have been discussed. But the
problems associated with many of these methods make it difficult to prove whether deterrence will work or not. An important way is
to deny terrorists access to nuclear weapons or materials. For this purpose, Graham Allison has identified and described three “No”s.
First, no “loose nukes”: all nuclear weapons and weapons grade material must be safely secured
as quickly as possible and tightly as the gold reserves in Fort Knox. Second, there are to be no new nascent
nukes: no nation-state must develop new capabilities to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium.
Last, there are to be no new nuclear-weapons states: a line must be drawn under the current
eight and a half nuclear powers and it must be said, unambiguously, “Stop. No more.” Then nation-
states have to be accountable for their nuclear weapons. Samples of nuclear materials from
states have to be kept by an international agency in order to ident- ify the origin of terrorists’
nuclear weapons. Then, if the potential sponsors know that the finger of blame can be pointed at them with confidence soon
after an attack and retaliatory attacks, including nuclear attacks, could deter states from helping terrorists develop nuclear weapons
in the first place.12 There are many limitations to this approach. One is that state sponsorship is arguably
not necessary for nuclear terrorism. More importantly, perhaps, knowing that the material used in a nuclear weapon came from a
specific source does not prove that the state in ques- tion actively provided the material to the terrorists. The accused state will likely
claim to have donated the material unknowingly and unwillingly, something that is very difficult to disprove. Even if documentation
can be found that senior officials were explicitly involved, the state can always claim that that person or persons in question acted
without per- mission. Another, limitation is when a nuclear-capable country gives weapons to a non-
state actor; it is then difficult to attack them because of the existing deterrence relationship
among these states. For example, if Russia were to exchange a nuclear capa- bility, it would be difficult for the USA to
conduct an attack against it. It is the same situ- ation prevailing between India and Pakistan.
 AT: ISIS IMPACT
Squo solves terrorist attacks – their data on ISIS is overstated
Lauren Carroll 14 - Carroll is a PolitiFact staff writer based in Washington (“Is ISIS
in Mexico and planning to cross the border?,” 9.17.14,
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/17/trent-
franks/isis-mexico-and-planning-cross-border/) hk
In a statement to PolitiFact, Franks said he got the information from a report circulating around
the Internet. Franks has since learned that Homeland Security believes the report was
"overstated," and his subsequent comments reflect that -- though he remains concerned about the possibility of terrorists
crossing the border. The report is from Judicial Watch, a conservative media website, and it claims that
"Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car
bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices," citing several anonymous "high-level federal law
enforcement, intelligence and other sources." We couldn’t find any other media outlets
that independently verified the story, and no federal officials would corroborate its claims, either. Without
knowing anything about Judicial Watch’s sources -- such as rank or agency -- it’s hard for us to assess the article’s credibility. In an
interview with PolitiFact, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton would not go into any further detail. The article says the Department
of Homeland Security did not respond to their multiple requests. We asked Homeland Security about the threat in
Juarez, and they said, "There is no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an
active plot by (ISIS) to attempt to cross the southern border." The topic came up a few
times in recent congressional hearings, and administrators reiterated the lacking evidence of an
imminent threat. In a Sept. 10 hearing before the House Homeland Security Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee,
Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., said, "We know that terrorist networks have been using our porous southern border and a broken
immigration system to enter the United States." DHS Deputy Under Secretary for Analysis Jennifer Lasley responded. "To
date, we have not had credible reporting that either Hezbollah or any other
terrorist group has been taking advantage of our borders to move individuals in
and out," Lasley said. "It's something we are always looking for, but to date, we have not seen credible evidence of that." Later in
the same hearing, Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, discussed his conversations with DHS, when administrators told him that there has
never been evidence of terrorists entering the United States via the southern border. He posed the same question to DHS
administrators present at the hearing. In response, John Wagner, acting assistant commissioner for Custom and Border Patrol’s
Office of Field Operations, said it is much more likely that ISIS and other Islamic extremists would come to the United States by
commercial plane. Wagner said the number of people suspected in terrorist activity caught on the southern border is in the tens,
while those on commercial jets is in the thousands. Both Rep. Franks and Fitton of Judicial Watch mentioned to us that the
government has intercepted ISIS social media posts that indicated a potential attack carried out by crossing the border. This came
up in a Sept. 10 Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Undersecretary for Intelligence
and Analysis Francis Taylor about recent reports of Twitter and Facebook exchanges in which ISIS
"urged infiltration" across the U.S.-Mexico border. "Yes, sir, there have been Twitter, social media exchanges
among ISIL adherents across the globe speaking about that as a possibility," Taylor said, adding: "I'm satisfied that we have the
intelligence and the capability at our border that would prevent that activity." This admission energized
the discussions in the conservative media. But social media threats should be taken with a grain of salt, said Colin Clarke, an expert
on international security at the Rand Corporation, a think tank. "ISIS could say ‘we would never consider (crossing the border),’ and
would we take that seriously?" Clarke said. "It’s really just one small sliver of evidence."

Even if it is possible it’s unlikely – too many barriers

Lauren Carroll 14 - Carroll is a PolitiFact staff writer based in Washington (“Is ISIS
in Mexico and planning to cross the border?,” 9.17.14,
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/17/trent-
franks/isis-mexico-and-planning-cross-border/) hk
We talked to several national security experts, and each one said they haven’t seen credible
evidence that ISIS is staging a plot that involves crossing the southern border. They also said that scenario is
highly unlikely. "There is big difference between a theoretical risk or a risk that is worth
worrying about," said David Schanzer, director of Duke University’s Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security.
The general sentiment among experts was: It’s possible that ISIS could sneak through the border -- illegal immigrants
do it every day. But why would they? Schanzer noted that ISIS members who have U.S. passports or visas could enter
the country legally via plane. (The 9/11 hijackers had U.S. visas.) Whereas if they crossed the border illegally, they
would run the risk of getting caught. Another possibility is that someone living in the United States could become
radicalized over the Internet and then stage an attack, like the men who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings last year, Clarke
said, adding that this was his biggest concern. Additionally, ISIS is "overwhelmingly focused" on Iraq
and Syria, said Daniel Benjamin, former ambassador at large and coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department.
The group likely does not have the wherewithal to stage an attack on American soil at this point.
In order to cross the border and stage an attack, ISIS would need a broad network in place in the
United States that could provide them with intelligence, weapons, money, sanctuary, training
and more, Clarke added.
WTO BAD
**NEG
DEFENSE
 AT: COLLAPSE
no impact to wto collapse
Ikenson, 9 (Daniel, associate director for the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato
Institute, March, 12, 2009, A Protectionism Fling: Why Tariff Hikes and Other Trade Barriers
Will Be Short-Lived, http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/FTBs/FTB-037.html/MS)
A Growing Constituency for Freer Trade The WTO/GATT system was created in the first place to
deter a protectionist pandemic triggered by global economic contraction. It was created to deal
with the very situation that is at hand. But in today's integrated global economy, those rules are
not the only incentives to keep trade barriers in check. With the advent and proliferation of
transnational supply chains, cross-border direct investment, multinational joint ventures, and
equity tie-ups, the "Us versus Them" characterization of world commerce no longer applies.
Most WTO members are happy to lower tariffs because imports provide consumers with lower
prices and greater variety, which incentivizes local business to improve quality and productivity,
which is crucial to increasing living standards. Moreover, many local economies now rely upon
access to imported raw materials, components, and capital equipment for their own value-added
activities. To improve chances to attract investment and talent in a world where capital
(physical, financial, and human) is increasingly mobile, countries must maintain policies that
create a stable business climate with limited administrative, logistical, and physical obstacles.
 AT: SOLVES CHINA
Their evidence doesn’t take into account non-democratic countries
Gelpi, 1 (Christopher, political science professor at Duke, Economic Interdependence, the
Democratic State, and the Liberal Peace, http://psweb.sbs.ohio-
state.edu/faculty/bpollins/book/Gelpi&Grieco.pdf/MS)
We seek in this paper to explore a new path for analyzing democracy, interdependence, and war.
Specifically, we explore the possibility that the impact of trade and democracy may be
contingent upon one another. We ground this interest in the possible interaction between
economic interdependence and democracy in a review of the work of Immanuel Kant and a
number of modern writers on interdependence and on the domestic incentives of political
leaders. We contend that this literature implies that economic interdependence may
reduce the risk of war between democracies, but exacerbate the risk of such
conflicts between non-democracies. Thus – along with Oneal and Russett - we suggest
that the classic liberals may indeed have been right, but in a manner more complex than had
been anticipated by many modern scholars. Rather than acting independently, the combined
influence of democracy and interdependence may create a powerful web of constraint that
reinforces the zone of peace among increasingly interdependent democracies. However, the
absence of mutual democracy may vitiate the pacifying effect of economic interdependence
between nations.
 NOT KEY TO TRADE
WTO not key to trade
Rose, 3 (Andrew K., professor at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, 9/30/2003, Do we
really know that the wto increases trade?/ms)
Maybe not. While theory, casual empiricism, and strong statements abound, there is, to my
knowledge, no compelling empirical evidence showing that the GATT/WTO has
actually encouraged trade. In this paper, I provide the first comprehensive econometric
study of the effect of the postwar multilateral agreements on trade. It turns out that membership
in the GATT/WTO is not associated with substantially enhanced trade, once standard factors
have been taken into account. To be more precise, countries acceding or belonging to the
GATT/WTO do not have significantly different trade patterns than non-members.
Not all multilateral institutions have been ineffectual; I find that the Generalized System of
Preferences (GSP) extended from the North to developing countries approximately doubles
trade. Thus the data and methodology clearly can deliver strong results. I conclude that we
currently do not have strong empirical evidence that the GATT/WTO has systematically played a
strong role in encouraging trade.

Studies prove – prefer our evidence

Rose, 3 (Andrew, professor of Economic Analysis and Policy, UC Berkeley, Do We Really Know
that the WTO Increases Trade?, American Economic Review 94.1,
http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose/GATT.pdf)
Of course the most interesting issue that remains is why the GATT/WTO doesn’t seem to have
had much of an impact on trade. It is natural to ask whether GATT/WTO members have
systematically lower trade barriers. The answer seems to be negative; see Rose (2002). There are
at least two possible reasons. The first is that the GATT/WTO has not typically forced most
countries to lower trade barriers, especially developing countries that have received “special and
differential treatment.” The second reason is that members of the WTO seem to extend most
favored nation status unilaterally to countries outside the system, even though they are under no
WTO formal obligation to do so.58 Still, one should be aware of the well-known difficulties
associated with measuring the stance of trade policy (Pritchett, 1996; Rodriguez and Rodrik,
2000). In appendix 6 I add tariff rates to the benchmark equation. 59 Tariffs rates have an
economically and statistically significant negative effect on trade (as seems sensible), and the
other gravity estimates are hardly changed …, as is the insignificance of GATT/WTO
membership.60 Appendix 7 delivers the same conclusion with four other measures of trade
policy: two indices from the Index of Economic Freedom, a measure of price distortions, and
black market premia. Ongoing research (Rose, 2002) indicates that the negative effect of
GATT/WTO membership on trade may appear because membership simply has little effect on
trade policy. For now, I note that my result is consistent with the extant econometric literature.

WTO fails to boost trade --- allows barriers to liberalization

Schifferes, 2 (Steve, Nov 6, BBC Reuters Fellow at Oxford and a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at
Columbia School of Journalism, BA Harvard , citing Rose,
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2406331.stm) //cb
The World Trade Organisation has done little to boost free trade, a leading academic researcher has said.
Professor Andrew Rose of the University of California at Berkeley says that membership of the WTO does little to increase trade
flows. In the past 50 years, world trade has soared, growing more than 20 times, twice as fast as the world economy has grown. Up
to now, economists and officials at the WTO have assumed that the six rounds of world trade talks, which resulted
in a massive lowering of tariff barriers to let in cheap imports, played an important role in this process. According to
Professor Rose's study, covering 175 countries between 1950 and 2000, there was no
correlation between a country's membership of the WTO (which used to be called Gatt) and an
increase in the volume of its trade. WTO headquarters in Geneva The WTO has fought for free trade for 50 years The
argument comes at a difficult time for the WTO, which is struggling to implement the latest round of trade talks, launched one year
ago at Doha, Qatar. Rich governments pledged at that time to make sure that any new trade deal would benefit the world's poor
countries. But the new WTO trade boss, Supachai Panitchpakdi, faces an uphill struggle getting them to deliver, especially on
agriculture. Paradox Professor Rose says that the reason for the lack of correlation is that even when countries
join the WTO, they are not necessarily obliged to open up their markets. He cites the example of
India, which was a founding member of the international trade organisation but continued to raise its tariff
barriers for many years. In contrast, China, although not admitted to the WTO until 2001, opened its
economy to Western investment in the 1980s and saw a huge growth in trade. And, despite the
effectiveness of negotiations aimed at lowering tariffs, Professor Rose says that all kinds of other trade barriers
(which may be consistent with WTO rules) are still used to keep out goods which threaten
livelihoods. The recent steel tariffs imposed by the US on many of its trading partners, in order to
prevent job losses at domestic steel plants, is a recent example.

No effect on trade and non-compliance inevitable

Baldwin 8 (Richard, “The WTO tipping point”, Staff writer for the Turkish Weekly
http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=2927 , July 1/ms)
The new century has seen massive liberalisation of trade in goods and services–much of it by
nations that disparaged trade liberalisation for decades. But unlike last century, almost none
of this has occurred under the WTO’s aegis. Poor nations have cut their tariffs, opened
their services sectors, and embraced foreign investment unilaterally or in bilateral trade
agreements. Rich nations have relied on regional trade deals to achieve their market-opening
goals. The deals signed this century are not commercially important, but this will change if the
European Union’s Asian initiatives succeed, especially if the United States feels compelled to
follow suit. The emerging trade powers–China, India, and Brazil–have had worryingly
favourable experiences with unilateralism and regionalism in the new century while their
commitment to multilateralism is relatively untested. The one part of the WTO system that
works well–the dispute settlement mechanism–is increasingly used as a substitute for
negotiated liberalisation with the result that de facto compliance by the United States, European
Union and others is eroding. To date, these changes seem more like challenges than threats. The
key players believe the world trade system will continue to be anchored by the WTO’s shared
values, such as reciprocity, transparency, non-discrimination, and the rule of law. WTO-
anchorage allows each member to view its own policies as minor derogations. Yet, at some point
derogations become the new norm. The steady erosion of the WTO’s centricity will sooner or
later bring the world to a tipping point–a point beyond which expectations become unmoored
and nations feel justified in ignoring WTO norms since everyone else does.
 AT: ROSE MODEL BAD
Gravity models effective in studying WTO trade liberalization even if generally
flawed
Rose Phd 4
(Andrew, March, Professor of International Business @ Haas School of Business at the Berkeley;
Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Research Fellow of the
Centre for Economic Policy Research, Ph.D. from MIT, M.Phil. from Oxford , “Do We Really
Know that the WTO Increases Trade?” The American Economic Review Vol. 94, No. 1,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592771) //cb
II. Empirical Methodology Quantifying the effects of the multilateral system on trade seems a worthy objective. Luckily, it is also
feasible. To estimate the effect of multilateral trade agreements on international trade, I rely on the
standard "gravity"model of bilateral trade, which explains (the natural logarithm of) trade with (the logs of) the
distance between the countries and their joint income. I augment the basic gravity equation with a
number of extra conditioning variables that affect trade, in order to account for as many
extraneous factors as possible. These include: culture (e.g., whether a pair of countries share a common
language), geography (e.g., whether none, one, or both are landlocked), and history (e.g., whether one col- onized the other).
My empirical strategy is to control for as many "natural" causes of trade as possible, and search
for effects of multilateral agree- ments in the residual. Once other factors have been taken into account, I
compare trade pat- terns for countries in the GATT/WTO with those outside the system. I
search for this effect using variation across countries (since not all countries are in the system) and time
(since membership of the GATT/WTO has grown). If the GATT/WTO has a large effect on trade, I expect members to have signifi-
cantly higher trade than outsiders. For those unfamiliar with the gravity model, it is a completely
conventional device used to estimate the effects of a variety of phenomena on international trade.
Unusually for econom- ics, it is also a successful model, in two senses. First, the estimated
effects of distance and out- put (the traditional gravity effects) are sensible, economically and statistically
significant, and reasonably consistent across studies. Second, the gravity model explains most of
the variation in international trade. That is, the model seems reliable and fits the data well.5
 AT: TOMZ, GOLDSTEIN, RIVERS
TGR = tomz, Goldstein and rivers

BACKGROUND
Rose, PhD 7
(Andrew, December, Professor of International Business @ Haas School of Business at the
Berkeley; Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Research
Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Ph.D. from MIT, M.Phil. from Oxford
www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30034598.pdf?_=1468704540024) //cb
TGR = Tomz, Goldstein, Rivers
Michael Tomz, Judith L. Goldstein, and Doug- las Rivers (hereafter TGR) argue that the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization
(WTO), had a substantial positive effect on trade. Their paper is a critique of my article "Do We
Really Know That the WTO Increases Trade?" which appeared in this Review (2004a). Among
other things, I used a bilateral "gravity" model of trade and showed that dummy variables for
member- ship by either one or two countries in the GATT had only small effects on trade. In
essence, TGR point out that a lot of countries were not formal members of the GATT but still
participated in it as colonies, or de facto or provisional members. TGR argue that if one includes
these other types of more informal participation, one gets large positive effects. For what it's
worth, I stated in my original article that de jure accession to the GATT need not be the same as
de facto accession, but I wasn't able to quantify it and encouraged others to do so. TGR did
precisely that, at the cost of much tedious archival work. I applaud them for it and will certainly
not question its accuracy. I also like their methodological strategy, which is to follow my
empirical framework closely and rely mostly on simply adding informal partici- pation to formal
GATT membership. TGR cite my work selectively but extensively. It's a clean and effective way
to proceed. I like their paper, and have learned a lot by reading it, and thinking about the issues
it raised. All who are interested in the topic of the impact of the multilateral system on trade
should take it seriously. Still, I have concerns about the mean- ing, plausibility, and robustness
of their results. I. Sweet A few things before I get into the meat. First, I take any critique as the
most serious sign of aca- demic praise, so I thank TGR for caring enough to write their paper.
Second, there are many things in TGR with which I agree. For instance, TGR are clearly right on
a number of small data issues (e.g., coding Benin, Comoros, various colonies, etc.). I'm happy to
see that these corrections only strengthen my results. They're also right that most colonies aren't
formal members but were covered by the GATT. I should have coded them accordingly myself
(and actually intended to). Third, a note of puzzlement. When I first presented this research at
seminars, the initial reaction to my finding of GATT irrelevance was inevitably disbelief. Still,
within an hour or so, almost everyone came to the view that I'd actually found little new. That is,
once one has reflected a little, it seemed reasonable (to both me and others) that membership in
the GATT might have had little effect on trade. Why? Reasons include the following: * The GATT
made few demands on most coun- tries in terms of liberalization, since most entrants were
developing countries eligible for special and differential treatment. * Most-favored-nation status
might seem like the great prize of GATT membership. But MFN status is often given freely to
countries outside the GATT. * Tariffs have been lowered by developed coun- tries under the
auspices of the GATT. But most economists are aware of the (deplor- able) fact that nontariff
barriers (NTBs) have often been increased as substitute protection- ism. And much trade of late
has grown under the auspices of complicated preferential trade agreements that undermine the
multilateral importance of the GATT. *

Alt causes to trade growth --- developing countries theory wrong

Rose, PhD 7
(Andrew, December, Professor of International Business @ Haas School of Business at the
Berkeley; Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Research
Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Ph.D. from MIT, M.Phil. from Oxford
www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30034598.pdf?_=1468704540024) //cb
In the voluminous and controversial litera- ture on trade and growth, no scholar, to my knowledge, has ever
dated trade liberali- zation with GATT accessions. If accession * means liberalization and trade
growth, why has no one ever tried to figure out if growth follows GATT accession? * There are
other reasons why trade has grown: declining transportation costs, higher produc- tivity
growth in tradables, and so forth. II. Sour I have five major issues with TGR (a number of minor quibbles are
presented in the Web-only version of this paper available at http://www. e-aer.org/data/dec07/20070550_app.pdf). They concern:
(1) the role of developing countries; (2) the relative size of membership and informal-
participation effects; (3) results from event stud- ies; (4) effects on aggregate trade; and
(5) trade policy patterns. A. The Essential Role of Developing Countries The TGR argument
hinges essentially on certain developing countries that informally participated and seemed to trade
more than outsiders. It's ironic to me that I've been criti- cized by Arvind Subramanian and Shang-Jin Wei (forthcoming) for
including any develop- ing countries at all. Their basic view (and that of most others) is that the GATT was essentially a club for
developed countries.' Their argument is that by including developing countries that are technically but not spiritually GATT mem-
bers, I've rigged the analysis to make the GATT look irrelevant. Since almost all the nonmember GATT participants were developing
countries, TGR say almost the opposite. They show that the relevance of the GATT can be rescued through reclassifying many
developing countries that are spiritually but not technically GATT members. Since my issue here is really the incongru-
ity of TGR with the literature, let me include a couple of typical excerpts that illustrate my dis- comfort. Jeffrey J. Schott
(2004, 9-10) writes: Why are developing countries so inter- ested in FTAs [free trade areas]? In the past, these countries were able to
obtain improved access to industrial markets through GATT negotiations that did not require them to reciprocate by opening their
own markets to foreign competi- tion. While useful, prior GATT rounds had two major shortcomings: they did not prompt policy
changes in develop- ing countries that would induce adequate flows of investment and transfers of tech- nology (apart from
extractive industries), and competitive agricultural and manu- factured exports of developing countries often were excluded from
the reforms. In short, developing countries were free rid- ers on the GATT system until the Uruguay Round, but derived only modest
benefits from their own minimal contributions to GATT negotiations. They protected their own markets, but in turn had to accept
the maintenance of high foreign trade barriers against their most competitive exports. Alternatively, consider Anne O. Krueger
(2000,7), who states: Developing countries' attitudes and trade policies during the 1950s and 1960s gen- erally resulted in
heightened walls of protection as industrialization through "import substitution" was attempted. That generally meant that
developing countries were not benefiting as much as they might have from the growth of the world econ- omy, while the "balance-of-
payments" provisions of the GATT were liberally interpreted to enable developing countries to maintain quantitative restrictions,
often including import prohibitions, on their imports. Moreover, the GATT articles were amended in the early 1960s to pro- vide
non-reciprocal preferential treatment of imports from those countries. One con- sequence was that developing countries (the East
Asian newly industrializing countries being a prominent exception) were losing shares of their world markets. It's worth
stressing that developing countries are key to TGR. The first couple of rows of their Table 4
indicate that GATT participation has a statistically marginal effect on trade when you look only
at industrial countries, even though there are almost 15,000 observations. The effect is
statistically significant really only when you include developing countries, and it's also larger in that case. I
find it implausible that the effect 1 E.g., the third sentence of John H. Barton et al. (2006, 1) who argue that, in contrast to the GATT,
the WTO is "not just a club of Western trading nations." of the GATT on trade works principally through developing countries.

TGR homogenizes informal participation and treats de facto participation wrong

Rose, Phd, 7
(Andrew K., May 29, Professor of International Business @ Haas School of Business at the
Berkeley; Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Research
Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Ph.D. from MIT, M.Phil. from Oxford "The
GATT: It's Everywhere You Want it To Be" faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose/TomzR.pdf) //cb
B. Membership versus Informal Participation One of the striking features of TGR's results is that informal
participation consistently mat- ters more for trade than formal membership. This doesn't
seem plausible; I simply don't understand why informal participation could create more trade
than actual membership in the GATT. TGR acknowledge this and also find it difficult to
explain. The hypothesis that informal participation in the GATT is equal to formal membership
is eminently testable, in terms of both economic and statistical significance. It is always rejected. Columns 3-5 of
TGR's Table 2 show that formal GATT members share less trade ceteris pari- bus than a pair of
informal GATT participants, no matter how you estimate the equation (the mixed results in between).
The differences are economically huge and statistically distinguish- able at the 0.0001 level.2 A related
point concerns the different types of informal participation. There are three types of informal participation: colonies, de facto mem-
bership, and provisional membership. One might ask: are they alike economically? Statistically? The answers are tabulated below. I
provide two tables: Table I has results pooled across time, while Table 2 covers cross sections. Clearly, the effects of different
types of participation are economically and statistically different. It would be enlightening to know why
informal participation seems typically to have a larger effect on trade than formal membership. Until we know, these differences are
troubling. Even then, not all informal participation is alike. De facto participants often seemed to
join in the letter of the GATT but not the spirit of liberalization (and thus, ironically, might be
described as de jure participants); such countries could alter trade policy without even notifying the
GATT! Cambodia, for instance, was a de facto GATT participant for 44 years, and never joined either the
GATT or the WTO; Algeria was a de facto member for 35 years and never joined-the list is long. In fact, 19 countries
maintained de facto status for at least 20 years, and another 14 kept it for at least a decade! It seems hard to believe that de
facto GATT par- ticipation was associated with much liberaliza- tion, given that countries
exploited it for so long.3 There are few signs of much liberalization by the de facto participants;
while most data are miss- ing, customs duties as a percentage of imports were some 18.8 percent for Algeria (and 42.1 percent for the
Seychelles, another long-term de facto participant) in 1994, immediately before the creation of the WTO. This skepticism is
reinforced by the fact that the WTO ditched the category when it came into being. None of this
would be particularly important if the results of TGR didn't rest on de facto participation. But
treating de facto participation as nonparticipa- tion weakens TGR's results
substantially, as one can see in Table 3. It is disturbing that de facto membership seems to make only weak demands on
participants but is important to the results.

TGR modelling is wrong --- misses boat on WTO membership status and
measurements
Rose, Phd, 7
(Andrew K., May 29, Professor of International Business @ Haas School of Business at the
Berkeley; Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Research
Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, Ph.D. from MIT, M.Phil. from Oxford "The
GATT: It's Everywhere You Want it To Be" faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose/TomzR.pdf) //cb
C. Where's the Big Effect on Aggregate Trade? TGR cite my work extensively, but selec- tively. In my original
work on the GATT, I used multilateral data as a corroborating check on my bilateral results. When
I use the TGR par- ticipation variables on multilateral data as I do in Table 4, I get weak results. The coefficients are positive, but
they're economically small and have marginal statistical effects, even in a panel with over 5,000 observations. The highest esti- mate
indicates that participation in the GATT raises trade by 12 percent; but TGR's default estimate is that bilateral trade between partici-
pants is 72 percent higher. This is an issue for TGR, since they basically have never seen any signs of trade diversion. For instance, in
the default TGR results of Table 2, column 6, the "only one participates in GATT" coefficient is 0.26 (standard error of 0.06). But if
there's no trade diversion, why isn't the aggre- gate trade creation visible? After all, almost all countries
participated in the GATT. And don't forget the background fact: trade was growing 2 TGR use a specification that includes only a
single dummy variable for both formal membership and all types of informal participation. 3 Most de facto participants that
eventually joined the GATT did so shortly before it was replaced by the WTO, thereby sparing themselves a potentially much more
dif- ficult accession process. D. Where's the Dynamic Effect of Joining? In my original paper, I provided
event studies, which graphically examined the decade around the formal entry of countries into
the GATT. I found little; the ratio of aggregate trade to GDP basically didn't change much when
one examined openness starting five years before accession and continued through to five years
afterward. What happens when one examines openness around entry into informal GATT
participation? Figure 1 contains four event studies for open- ness (the ratio of exports plus imports to output) in the decade
around GATT entry (they are analogues to the event studies in my original paper). A total of 33 countries formally entered the GATT
from the outside; they are portrayed in the top left graphic. The others depict: for- malization of status for an informal participant;
entry into informal status from the outside; and exit from participation. When I study the figures, I don't see
strong evidence that openness rose during the period around either formal or informal
GATT entry. Raw openness falls somewhat when countries leave the GATT.4 But entry into the GATT- either formally or
informally-seems to have had no substantial effect on aggregate trade, and 4 This effect vanishes when standard controls are used
for openness; details are available in the Web-only version. This content downloaded from 67.194.23.54 on Sat, 16 Jul 2016 18:29:17
UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms VOL. 97 NO. 5 ROSE: DOES THE WTO REALLY INCREASE TRADE? REPLY
2023 TABLE 2-ANALOGUE TO TOMZ, GOLDSTEIN, AND RIVERS TABLE 5: CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSIS, DISAGGREGATED
BY STATUS Formal- Formal- Informal- Both formal Both informal informal outsider outsider Obs. 1950 0.66 0.72 0.50 0.25 0.34
1,115 (0.12) (0.41) (0.13) (0.10) (0.16) 1955 0.79 1.19 0.74 0.39 0.42 1,468 (0.12) (0.30) (0.13) (0.11) (0.16) 1960 0.65 0.66 0.33 0.29
0.37 2,625 (0.12) (0.16) (0.11) (0.10) (0.11) 1965 0.36 0.32 0.41 0.24 0.33 3,361 (0.11) (0.17) (0.11) (0.11) (0.13) 1970 0.22 1.90 0.78
0.16 0.47 4,737 (0.13) (0.30) (0.14) (0.13) (0.19) 1975 0.07 1.06 0.53 0.07 0.47 5,354 (0.15) (0.27) (0.16) (0.15) (0.21) 1980 0.31 1.01
0.57 0.35 0.43 5,895 (0.16) (0.28) (0.17) (0.17) (0.21) 1985 0.44 0.77 0.74 0.21 0.58 6,232 (0.22) (0.43) (0.23) (0.23) (0.30) 1990
0.74 0.26 0.85 0.55 0.51 6,620 (0.30) (0.62) (0.31) (0.31) (0.41) 1995 -0.50 -0.90 -0.60 -0.68 -0.50 7,640 (0.24) (0.58) (0.27) (0.25)
(0.42) Notes: Regressand: log real trade. Robust standard errors (clustering by country-pairs) in parentheses. OLS. Regressors not
recorded: regional FTA; currency union; log distance; log product real GDP; log product real GDP p/c; common language; land
border; number landlocked; number islands; log product land area; common colonizer; currently colonized; ever col- ony; and
common country. the same is true when a country formalizes its GATT status. Why not? How can TGR believe that
participation boosts bilateral trade so much if it doesn't have a strong detectable effect on aggregate
trade? E. Where's the Effect of Participation on Trade Policy? The effect of GATT/WTO membership on trade flows was part of a
larger project of mine concerning the consequences of the multilateral trade system. I have a whole article (2004b) that argues that
the noneffect of formal membership on trade policy helps explain my nonresults of membership
on trade. Since trade policy is hard to measure, I used almost 70 measures of it. I found that
trade policy varied little between members and nonmembers, which rationalized my finding that
trade flows were unaffected by membership. What happens when you use TGR's measure of participation in place
of my measure of formal membership? Little. When I use the TGR partic- ipation variables on the multilateral panel mea- sures of
trade policy that I used in that article, I get the weak results in Table 5. There are basi- cally no detectable
differences in trade policy between outsiders and TGR participants.5 Francisco Rodriquez and Dani Rodrik
(1999) recommend simple trade-weighted tariff aver- ages as a measure of trade policy; their view is that, while flawed, average
tariffs still do a decent job of measuring trade policy. This seems sensible to me. Further, there are many hundreds of country-year
observations on tar- iffs, as measured by the ratio of import duties to imports. The top line in the Table 5 shows that countries
that participate in the GATT (either formally or informally) have higher tariffs than outsiders ,
though not significantly so. Such findings are a serious concern for the message of TGR. How can
participation affect trade if it doesn't affect trade policy? III. Conclusion To summarize, I'm queasy
about the TGR results for a number of reasons: * It is hard to believe that the GATT could
have a profound effect on developing countries and a relatively small effect on industrial
countries; * It is hard to believe that formal GATT mem- bership matters so much less for trade
than informal (especially de facto) participation in the GATT; * I don't see how entry into the
GATT (either formal or informal) could matter so much when event studies show a negligible
effect in the decade around entry; * I don't understand how GATT participation can have a large
effect on bilateral trade, no detectable trade diversion, and yet a negli- gible effect on aggregate
trade; * I don't understand how participation can have a large effect on trade with no substantial
I use only the panel measures so that I can use TGR's preferred FE estimation strategy. Others may
choose to analyze the many cross-sectional measures of trade policy available on my Web site.
 AT: WTO SOLVES ASIA-PACIFIC
doesn’t deter conflict
Wettach, 13 (Taylor, Graduate Of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School Of
Foreign Service., 4-28-2013, "Asia-Pacific: Headed towards conflict?," Global Risk Insights,
http://globalriskinsights.com/2013/04/are-2012%E2%80%B2s-tensions-indicative-of-
increased-long-term-risk-to-the-asia-pacifics-regional-architecture/
A large body of literature would suggest that the Asia-Pacific’s recent economic successes should
pave the way for long-term cooperation by linking trade to regional peace. The recognition of
mutual benefits from trade theoretically fosters peace as national interests converge, deterring
states from initiating conflict against a trading partner for fear of losing trade-associated welfare
gains. According to WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, the Asia-Pacific has become the world’s
most integrated trading region. This growth in trade interdependence can be seen
amidst now-tense relations between the aforementioned examples. In 2011, China-
Japan trade rose 14.3% to $344.9 billion, ASEAN-China trade rose 24% to $362.3 billion, and
intra-ASEAN trade rose 15.1% to $598.2 billion. Why then, while contributing 40% of the
world’s growth and reaching peak economic integration, should the Asia-Pacific see a rise in
behavior contrary to mutually beneficial economic interests?
TURNS
 TOP LEVEL LINK CARD
Increased WTO credibility from the US will trigger the impact
Sumner, 7 (Daniel, director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center, U.S. Farm
Policy and WTO Compliance, p. 17/ms)

If the United States is seen to ignore its international obligations, its leadership role will likely
be forfeited. Furthermore, the process of defending itself in trade litigation damages the
reputation of the United States, in ways that are similar to how defending against lawsuits from
customers damages the reputation of marketing firms. Most firms decide it makes more sense to
protect the reputation of the firm by avoiding law suits from customers, even if they are able to
prevail in much of the litigation. In WTO and bilateral free trade negotiations, the position of
the United States is stronger if the United States has a reputation of complying with the existing
agreements. Conversely, if trade partners perceive that the United States does not comply with
its WTO domestic support obligations, other members have little incentive to reduce and bind
their import barriers, for which compliance is almost automatic.
 HURTS WTO
China’s role in the WTO turns effectiveness
Aaronson, 10
(Susan Ariel, Winter, Associate Research Professor and 2009–2010 Policy Research Scholar,
George Washington University Elliott School. This article is a shorter version of a chapter
prepared for the forthcoming book, China in the WTO: An Early Harvest, www.nccr-
trade.org/fileadmin/user_upload/nccr-trade.ch/downloads/TIE_W10_Aaronson.pdf)
F or fifteen long years, the members of the GATT/WTO debated whether they would be better off with China as a member. Trade
policymakers understood that the international organization could not pretend to govern world trade with such an important
trading nation outside of the World Trade Organization. They wagered that China’s trade policy would become more predictable,
accessible, and transparent. Moreover, they concluded that member states could collaborate, using the WTO’s rules, to prod China to
act responsibly as a global trader. China acceded to the WTO in 2001. To some degree that bet has “paid off,” producing benefits for
the citizens of China and other countries. Trade has helped China lift some four hundred million people out of poverty and has
provided more of the Chinese people with greater access to opportunities. Foreign investors and producers now serve China’s
growing market, while consumers worldwide can purchase a broad range of well-made affordable goods made in China. Meanwhile,
Chinese demand for goods and raw materials has created jobs and stimulated economic growth in many developing countries. The
World Bank notes that the efficiency and scale of China’s manufacturing has pushed down the prices of many manufactured
products relative to other goods and services. B Y S USAN A RIEL A ARONSON Chinese officials are ignoring both
international and local law for companies that produce for export. Susan Ariel Aaronson is an Associate
Research Professor and 2009–2010 Policy Research Scholar, George Washington University Elliott School. This article is a shorter
version of a chapter prepared for the forthcoming book, China in the WTO: An Early Harvest (Petros Mavroidis, ed.). THE
MAGAZINE OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY 888 16th Street, N.W., Suite 740 Washington, D.C. 20006 Phone: 202-
861-0791 • Fax: 202-861-0790 www.international-economy.com WINTER 2010 THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY 41 A
ARONSON China today is now the world’s third-largest trading nation, the world’s largest recipient of investment, the world’s
fastest growing consumer market, and the world’s leading provider of manufactured goods. China’s regulatory and trade practices
can move global markets. But China’s competitive advantage is to some degree based on its inadequate
governance—it fails to enforce its own laws in a transparent, evenhanded manner. China’s
system is broken. And because it is broken, its inadequate governance affects its trade partners—
and ultimately, could break the WTO. On the one hand, China’s leaders have tried very hard to comply with the
country’s WTO obligations. China has changed many of its laws and met most of its market access commitments. On the other
hand, it has yet to meet many of the obligations delineated in its protocol of accession. European and
American business groups investing in China perceive China as becoming more interventionist and protectionist. As the world’s
most populous country, China is in many ways an outlier. It is both an ancient empire and developing country with two key
attributes: authoritarian governance and inadequate governance. At the national level, the Communist Party is at times willing to
ignore its international commitments in order to maintain power. Moreover, the Communist Party owns and operates, or is tied to,
private enterprises in key sectors such as transportation, energy, and banking. Some have described the government as both a
market competitor and a referee. China’s inadequate governance at the provincial level also reflects many
factors including corruption, a lack of uniformity among rules, and arbitrary abuse of
power. Local officials often have financial stakes in the same companies they are supposed to regulate. The Communist Party
and business are deeply intertwined, and thus governmental mandates from Beijing may be ignored or circumvented. Finally,
China has a culture of noncompliance, where bad actors set the norm, where laws and regulations
are often ignored or unevenly enforced, and where many citizens and market actors don’t know or can’t
obtain their rights under the law. WTO members deliberated a long time before they let China join the WTO. And they
used the accession to hold China on a tight leash. The 2001 Protocol on the Accession of the People’s Republic of China explicitly
calls on China to “apply and administer in a uniform, impartial, and reasonable manner all its laws, regulations and other measures
of the central government as well as local regulations, rules and other measures…pertaining to or affecting trade…. China shall
establish a mechanism under which individuals and enterprises can bring to the attention of the national authorities cases of non-
uniform application.” It also calls on China to ensure that “those laws, regulations, and other measures pertaining to and affecting
trade…shall be enforced.” The rule of law was a key element of China’s accession agreement because trade policymakers understood
that how China was governed could distort trade in many of the sectors in which China competes. In recent years, China
has become infamous for its failure to enforce its own laws, whether those laws related to
intellectual property, product or food safety, human rights, or employment. In both its 2006 and 2008
Trade Policy Review at the WTO, member states lauded Chinese trade diplomats for their export prowess, but also complained that
China was not transparent, accountable, or sufficiently evenhanded. Nor could they trust Chinese statistics on trade, economic
growth, bank stability, intellectual property protection, and other aspects of enforcement.
 CCP COLLAPSE
WTO obligations will undermine CCP legitimacy
Halverson, 4 (Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, Interrelationships:
International Economic Law and Developing Countries China ’s WTO Accession: Economic,
Legal, and Political Implications, Volume 27, Article 6,
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=iclr/)ms
The concept of transparency is central to the WTO agreements. Article X of the GATT
1994 requires that all trade-related laws, regulations, and rulings be promptly published and
administered in an "impartial and uniform" manner.I05 The Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of lntellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) devotes an entire chapter to
enforcement obligations,106 and the GATS, in addition to publication and notification
requirements, requires setting up "enquiry points" to provide information at the request of any
member.107 Thus, the transparency-related obligations contained in the wro agreements
encompass not only the publication of trade-related laws, but also their accessibility as well as
fair and effective implementation. In addition to these obligations, China's protocol of accession
includes a number of specific commitments that confirm as well as supplement the obligations
contained in the WTO agreements. This section describes these rules, points out certain
obstacles to their effective implementation, and notes the extent to which the Chinese
government has achieved progress in implementation. There has been much written regarding
the differences between China's legal culture and that of Western countries, including debate on
the degree to which China is a country governed by the "rule of law. "1°8 This Article does not
address all of these questions but instead describes the transparency-related rules that bind
China as a WTO member and assesses the general progress China has made, and the challenges
that remain, in implementing these obligations. When compared with the state of affairs in
1978, China has made impressive progress in creating the legal framework necessary to support
a market economy. Certainly, GATT (and later WTO) accession has proceeded alongside this
massive rebuilding of China's legal system-a system that was virtually wiped out during the
Cultural Revolution. 109 Yet it is increasingly apparent that WTO accession has also
provided a catalyst for China's evolution away from a legal system driven by power
relationships and towards a rule-based legal system.

Commitments made to the WTO will lead to Chinese political reform

Halverson, 4 (Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, Interrelationships:
International Economic Law and Developing Countries China ’s WTO Accession: Economic,
Legal, and Political Implications, Volume 27, Article 6,
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=iclr/)ms
The trajectory of China's reform process over the past two decades mirrors China's lengthy
process of joining the WTO. This Article analyzes the relationship between these two processes. China's experience as a
WTO member is unique. Perhaps in no other country has WTO accession had such a profound impact on
economic, legal, and political change as in China. Notwithstanding concerns expressed in the past by WTO members
regarding China's ability to comply with the obligations of WTO membership,n more current developments suggest
that the threat to reform in China does not stem so much from any lack of commitment on the
part of the CCP,12 but rather from the possibility that disaffected groups in China will
ultimately destabilize the political system. The irony of China's situation is that the
process of WTO accession, by accelerating market reform and expanding the private sector,
has exacerbated income inequality in the country. Part I of this Article describes China's accession process,
highlights the role the WTO has played in propelling forward China's economic reform program, and contrasts China's experience
with that of other Communist countries that joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) during the 1960-70s. Part II
examines the ways in which wto accession has provided an impetus to legal reform. Finally, Part III speculates on the extent to
which China's WTO-related commitments will lead to political reform in the future.
Measures imposed by the WTO will destabilize the CCP
Milsom, 3 (Mariam, Human Resources Manager in charge of Compensation, Benefits, and
HRIS for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, China-Political and Regulatory System,
January 26, 2003, www.sixsmart.com/SSPapers pmw10.htm/ms)
Another threat to the stability of the Chinese government is the pressure to conform to the
world’s demand for a more open market. Friedman, in his book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,”
describes a ‘golden straightjacket.’ This straightjacket is an analogy for the rules and regulations
that a country must adhere to in order to attract and retain foreign investment. Many of these
rules and regulations are overtly demanded by the World Trade Organization and national
treaties while others are silently mandated by a collective group of private investors seeking a
safe place to invest. The Chinese government, in an effort to attract foreign funds, is taking appropriate
steps to put on this ‘Golden Straightjacket.’ This imaginary straightjacket, however, is putting
pressure on the Chinese culture and way of life. Gordon Chang, author of the book "The
Coming Collapse of China” suggests that the Chinese Communist party may be unable to solve
the problems inherent to adhering to the World Trade Organization’s requests. The cause of the
collapse “would be the stress of conforming to WTO norms and other tensions inherent in the
broader impact of globalization” (Sutter, R. 10/25/01. Par 2). “The supertanker is headed for the
rocks, and the committee of captains is not ready to turn the helm hard in any direction. The country's
apparent stability gives a false sense of security” (Jackson, S. 8/13/2002. Par 10).

Collapse causes violent lashout – extinction

Renxing, 5 (San, 8-29, "Association for Asia Research- The CCP’s Last-ditch Gamble: Biological and
Nuclear War," No Publication, http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2692.html/ms)
In a show of strength to save itself from demise, the CCP has brought out a sinister plan that it
has been preparing for years, a last-ditch gamble to extend its life. This plan is laid out in two speeches
written by Chi Haotian, Minster of Defense and vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, and posted on the Internet.
The background surrounding the speeches is still shrouded in mystery. The titles of the two speeches are “War Is Approaching Us”
[1] and “War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century.” The two, judging from their similar contexts and
consistent theme, are indeed sister articles. These speeches describe in a comprehensive, systematic, and detailed way the CCP’s
nearly 20 years of fear and helplessness over its doomed fate, and its desperate fight to extend its life. In particular, the speeches lay
uncharacteristically bare what is really on the CCP’s mind and hide nothing from the public—a rare confession from the CCP that can
help people understand its evil nature. If one truly understands what is said in this confession, one will immediately catch on to the
CCP’s thinking. In short, the speeches are worth reading, and I would like to comment on them. I. A Gangster Gambles with the
World as His Stake, and the Lives of People in this Global Village Become Worthless What, then, is the gist of this wild, last-ditch
gamble? To put it in a few words: A cornered beast is fighting desperately to survive in a battle with humanity. If you don’t believe
me, read some passages directly from the speeches. 1) “We must prepare ourselves for two scenarios. If our
biological weapons succeed in the surprise attack [on the US], the Chinese people will be able to
keep their losses at a minimum in the fight against the U.S. If, however, the attack fails and
triggers a nuclear retaliation from the U.S., China would perhaps suffer a catastrophe in which
more than half of its population would perish. That is why we need to be ready with air defense
systems for our big and medium-sized cities. Whatever the case may be, we can only move forward
fearlessly for the sake of our Party and state and our nation’s future, regardless of the hardships
we have to face and the sacrifices we have to make. The population, even if more than half dies, can be
reproduced. But if the Party falls, everything is gone, and forever gone!” 2) “In any event, we, the CCP, will never step
down from the stage of history! We’d rather have the whole world, or even the entire globe,
share life and death with us than step down from the stage of history!!! Isn’t there a ‘nuclear bondage’
theory? It means that since the nuclear weapons have bound the security of the entire world, all will die together if death is
inevitable. In my view, there is another kind of bondage, and that is, the fate our Party is tied up with that of the whole world. If
we, the CCP, are finished, China will be finished, and the world will be finished.” 3) “It is indeed
brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans. But that is the only path that will
secure a Chinese century, a century in which the CCP leads the world. We, as revolutionary
humanitarians, do not want deaths. But if history confronts us with a choice between deaths of Chinese and those of Americans, we’d
have to pick the latter, as, for us, it is more important to safeguard the lives of the Chinese people and the life of our Party. That is
because, after all, we are Chinese and members of the CCP. Since the day we joined the CCP, the Party’s life has always been above
all else!” Since the Party’s life is “above all else,” it would not be surprising if the CCP
resorts to the use of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in its attempt to
extend its life. The CCP, which disregards human life, would not hesitate to kill two hundred million Americans, along with
seven or eight hundred million Chinese, to achieve its ends. These speeches let the public see the CCP for what it really is. With evil
filling its every cell the CCP intends to wage a war against humankind in its desperate attempt to cling to life. That is the main theme
of the speeches.
 CHINESE ECONOMY
Hurts farmers income
Anderson, Huang, Ianchovichina 3
(Kym, Jikun, Elena, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, May, School of Economics
and Centre for International Economic Studies, University of Adelaide,,
siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDEBTDEPT/Resources/468980-1206974166266/4833916-
1206974192224/PRWP3052.pdf)
Keeping the momentum of growth-enhancing trade reform going requires convincing sceptics that there will not be significant
losers. Yet such reform necessarily involves structural adjustments by households, firms and bureaucracies. While the economy as a
whole can gain substantially from those adjustments,1 losses and even hardship can result for some households unless
complementary domestic policies are in place to facilitate adjustment and/or compensate losers. That underscores the
importance of first analyzing the likely distributional consequences of the reforms themselves,
and then considering what complementary policies are needed to provide adequate safety nets for
potential losers. Of particular concern in China’s case is that farm incomes may fall,
exacerbating the rise since the mid-1980s in farm-nonfarm and inlandcoastal aggregate income inequality and
possibly reversing the decline since the late 1970s in rural poverty (see Kanbur and Zhang 2001). The policy
changes still to be made to fulfill WTO obligations will affect all areas of China’s economy. Numerous commentators
predict a dramatic effect on agriculture and hence rural areas, because the reforms in China over
much of the past quarter-century bypassed the country’s trade policies for key farm products.
Before acceding to WTO, China was required by its trading partners to commit to major changes in those farm trade policies by 2005
– protection cuts that appear far greater, and faster, than any other developing country was required to commit to in the Uruguay
Round Agreement on Agriculture. With one-quarter of rural households in China living on less than $1 a day in 1999 (c.f. 1 per cent
of urban households) 3 such that more than three-quarters of all poor Chinese people live in rural areas, concerns about the
impact of WTO accession on poverty alleviation are understandable. Meeting the commitments in
agriculture will directly affect China’s farm sector plus its food, feed and fiber processors, as well as consumers of food and
beverages. Imports of numerous land-intensive farm products may increase, and most observers presume that will put downward
pressure on prices received by China’s farmers. However, reduced protectionism may boost output and exports of some labor-
intensive farm products in which China still has a comparative advantage.2 In addition, farm households will be affected
indirectly by many of the other commitments China has made in its WTO Accession Protocol.
Especially important will be the arrangements for phasing out the ‘voluntary’ export restraints on
China’s textile and clothing trade, and the reductions in protection of the motor vehicles and parts industry. So too will
be the myriad commitments affecting the services sector, including state trading enterprises. Those changes, together with the
promised increase in a wide range of agricultural imports, will allow China to exploit more fully its strong comparative advantage in
unskilled labor-intensive products – both farm and non-farm (Anderson 1990, 1992; Huang et al. 2000). To assess the long run
impact on farmer incomes and on rural areas of the remaining reforms required to meet China’s commitments to the WTO
membership, it is necessary to see those changes in the context of on-going economic growth and structural change. This paper
therefore begins with a brief summary of rural developments since the initial reforms began in the late 1970s, of recent policies
affecting rural households, and of pertinent reforms still to be delivered as part of China’s WTO commitments. With that
background, the paper then provides some indication of the likely effects on the welfare of different factor markets and hence
different types of households of the reforms to be implemented between 2002 and 2007. Even the direction, let alone the
magnitude, of some of the effects cannot be discerned from theory (Winters 2000; McCulloch, Winters and Cirera 2001), so we use
the numerical simulation model known as GTAP to address these issues. The paper concludes by drawing out implications for
Chinese policy makers wishing to pre-empt any increases in food insecurity or rural poverty.

Chinese food collapse collapses the Chinese economy

Carlson 12 (Benjamin, Writer at the Global Post, US Agricultural Exports to China Become
Costly in Times of Drought, July,
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48349453/US_Agricultural_Exports_to_China_Become_Costly_in_
Times_of_Drought)
With the worst dry spell in 50 years threatening to kill corn and soybean crops across a wide
swath of the Midwest, driving food prices to record highs, Chinese officials are bracing for a
shock that could complicate plans to revive the economy this year. In 2011, China imported $20
billion worth of soybeans, corn, cotton and hides from US farmers, surpassing Canada for the
first time. China is particularly dependent on soybeans, which have become a crucial feed
crop for the country’s massive pig farms. As more Chinese can afford to eat meat more regularly,
pork consumption has skyrocketed. More than half of the world’s pork is now produced and
consumed within China. Corn imports are also important, with China purchasing more from the
US than any country but Japan. Next year, it is expected to buy 5 million tons of American corn.
But analysts don’t expect the prices to come down anytime soon. A bullish run on soybean
futures drove up the cost to $16.92 per bushel for November delivery, beating the previous all-
time high of $16.37 set during the global food crisis of 2008. All this constrains Beijing's ability
to fix its economy. If rising food prices boost inflation, the government would have less room
to increase the money supply and fuel growth — a key concern given that the economy has been
slowing all year. Already, analysts are predicting that ordinary Chinese could feel some sticker
shock when they go to the butcher. Zhang Zhiwei at Nomura says that the “sharp rise of global
agricultural prices will likely push up pork prices in China,” according to the Financial Times.
 BIODIVERSITY
WTO rules hurt biod and deforestation---TRIPs makes protection impossible
RSPB, 2k
(charity working to secure a healthy environment for birds and all wildlife, "Birds, Biodiversity
and the World Trade Organization" https://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/Briefing%20-
%20Birds%20Biodiversity%20and%20the%20WTO_tcm9-133010.pdf) //cb
Forests In the WTO, products from forests are treated like any other industrial good (e.g.
cars, toys, televisions etc.). Yet, like agriculture, forests also serve multiple functions and provide multiple
benefits to society including stabilising soils, playing an important role in determining
microclimatic and global climatic conditions, providing food and shelter for forest-dwelling peoples as
well as being important reservoirs of wildlife. It is crucial therefore that forests are not treated just
like any other industrial product at the WTO and that trade policy is based on ensuring that these
multiple benefits can be realised. Ownership and control of plants and animals The WTO rules on life-form patenting
enshrined in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) could have significant
impacts on the control and use of biological resources. For example, a US company has filed patents on various
properties of the Neem Tree in India and could theoretically claim royalties from Indian people using the Neem Tree despite the fact
that they have been doing so for centuries. The private rights over life-forms conferred to companies by the
TRIPs Agreement seem also to conflict with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) requirements
that benefits from biological resources should be shared with indigenous/ local peoples and that
indigenous/traditional knowledge over biological resources should be recognised. Government purchasing policy Under
proposed WTO rules, government procurement policies that discriminate in favour of more
environmentally sound products could be outlawed, thus further limiting the range of
policies available to encourage biodiversity conservation. Broader sustainable development concerns As well
as impacts on birds and biodiversity, the trade system also creates a number of broader sustainable
development concerns that need addressing such as: · the technical and financial capacity of
developing country WTO members to effectively participate in negotiations; · the technical and
financial capacity of developing country WTO members to implement a range of complex trade
rules; · the impacts of international commodity market price fluctuations on developing country producers; 5 · the extent to
which trade liberalisation helps or hinders poverty elimination, food security and other national
development goals. Biodiversity conservation cannot be seen in isolation from these wider concerns. Trade policy must
therefore pursue the conservation and sustainable use of our natural heritage through a sustainable development agenda that aims
to benefit people and the environment.

trade hurts the environment – WTO restrictions fail

RSPB, 2k
(charity working to secure a healthy environment for birds and all wildlife, "Birds, Biodiversity
and the World Trade Organization" https://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/Briefing%20-
%20Birds%20Biodiversity%20and%20the%20WTO_tcm9-133010.pdf) //cb
Climate change Increasing international trade is facilitated by ever cheaper international transport.
However, the environmental and social costs of oil extraction, transport, processing and use are not
included in the price of oil. This means that the price of international transport is artificially low,
making long distance freight movement more economically viable than it should be. In fact
international aviation and shipping fuels (and hence emissions) remain untaxed and, due to strong
opposition from major energy using countries, such emissions are not even required to be counted in greenhouse gas inventories
submitted by Governments to the climate change convention (agreed in Rio in 1992). Greenhouse gas emissions
from international trade are among the fastest growing in the world, exacerbating climate
change and threatening wildlife globally. Trade in wild birds 2 People have caught and kept birds for many centuries
but it is only in the last 150 years that the international trade in wild birds has become significant. The number of birds removed
from the wild for the international bird trade is not precisely known, largely because of the extensive trade between South East Asian
nations. It certainly however runs into several millions a year. Most of the birds in trade are songbirds. BirdLife has estimated that
around 150 of the world’s threatened bird species are being detrimentally affected by trade (including domestic trade) or collecting.
For some families, particularly the parrots, international trade is a very significant threat and for
species, such as the Spix’s Macaw, the trade may well lead to its extinction in the wild. Although the trade
in some bird species is restricted by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), this treaty only
covers a small proportion of those species traded. For species of high value, CITES controls, whilst definitely important, have
had only limited effectiveness due to the high incentive to get around regulations and the
relatively low priority given by most countries to effective enforcement. Also, the trade restrictions
sanctioned by CITES could potentially be challenged through, and undermined by, the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) though this has not happened to date (see below). The ‘race to the bottom’ International competition
and the global mobility of corporations can discourage governments from increasing environmental standards that are perceived to
have a significant impact on business costs. Companies can threaten to relocate their businesses if they feel a government is ‘over-
regulating’ and this can dissuade governments from implementing higher environmental standards. For example, in 1999 the UK
steel and chemical industries threatened to relocate to other countries if the UK Government implemented a full climate change levy
on their greenhouse gas emissions2 . The Government subsequently modified its proposal. This ‘chilling’ of environmental standards
is sometimes referred to as the ‘race to the bottom’. Growth and limits Trade can help increase wealth and improve
quality of life but this can itself bring environmental costs as well as benefits. Increased wealth can bring, for
example, better sanitation, housing and education and it has been shown that rich countries have lower emissions of some industrial
pollutants – such as sulphur dioxide – than middle income countries3 . However rich countries generally do emit more
‘greenhouse gases’, consume more natural resources and produce more waste per person than
poorer countries. Constantly increasing trade and economic growth can conflict with the physical limits
of the Earth’s environment and the need to sustainably manage natural resources. Part of the problem
lies in the fact that governments generally equate ‘quality of life’ with economic growth measured through ‘Gross
Domestic Product’ (GDP) - and increasing GDP is a key aim of the WTO. However, GDP is not an
adequate measure of our quality of life because it does not take into account the costs of
environmental destruction. For example, over-fishing, unsustainable logging, intensive
farming, industrial pollution and oil spills1 – which can all threaten bird and other species - are perversely
counted as being beneficial because they can all increase GDP in the short term. Specialised
resource use Production for export is based on the specialisation of resource use (e.g. monoculture
forestry and oil palm plantations) which can impoverish natural habitats and reduce species diversity.
Economists argue that with increased international competition and trade, countries will specialise in
producing what they are best at and exchange these goods with others. This, it is said, is more economically ‘efficient’. However,
the downside of increased specialisation is that it can impoverish our natural environment.

Squo WTO protections like CITES fail –unenforceable and conflicting rules
RSPB, 2k
(charity working to secure a healthy environment for birds and all wildlife, "Birds, Biodiversity
and the World Trade Organization" https://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/Briefing%20-
%20Birds%20Biodiversity%20and%20the%20WTO_tcm9-133010.pdf) //cb
Particular issues where current or proposed rules do or could conflict with biodiversity
conservation include the following. Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs) Effective
international environmental policy – through existing agreements like the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) and the Biosafety Protocol - is crucial for wildlife conservation. However it is currently uncertain
whether trade-restricting measures that are allowed by Multilateral Environment Agreements
(MEAs) like CITES are compatible with WTO rules which generally try to encourage freer
trade. This means that MEAs are potentially open to challenge in, and could be undermined by, the
WTO. Trade rules and trade concerns are also having a ‘chilling effect’ on the development of new
MEAs. For example, an international agreement, negotiated in January 2000, to regulate the trade and use of
Genetically Modified Organisms (the ‘Biosafety Protocol’) was weakened because of the trade concerns of a small
group of GM crop exporting countries (including Canada and the USA). These GM crop exporters also managed to
ensure that the relationship between the Protocol and WTO rules remains unclear. This means that
future implementation of the Protocol could be undermined by a WTO challenge, or even
by just the threat of a WTO challenge. More sustainable production processes Although being able to favour
more environmentally benign production methods is potentially a very important tool in reducing
our adverse impact on biodiversity, the current interpretation of WTO rules prohibits
discrimination on the basis of the way products are produced (what are known as ‘non product-related
Process and Production Methods’ – PPMs). For example, under WTO rules, a country cannot give tax
concessions to timber that is certified as being sustainably produced (in order to encourage more
sustainable forestry). This is because, according to WTO rules, timber is timber no matter how it has
been harvested so all timber should be treated the same. Any discrimination on the basis of the
way it has been produced is deemed ‘unfair’.
 AT: CITES SOLVE
CITES fails – commercial interests outweigh
Jones, 10 (Mark, programmes and fundraising director of Care for the Wild International, a
UK-based conservation charity, April 6, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8606011.stm)
//cb
Governments, conservationists and pro-trade groups have been trying to make what capital they can from their
respective "victories" at last month's meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES). But, asks Mark Jones, is the 37-year-old convention successfully doing the job it was
established to do? CITES is mandated to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants, or products derived from
them, does not threaten their survival. An impressive-sounding 175 parties (member countries) are committed to implementing
various protection measures for some 5,000 species of animal and 28,000 plants. Yet at times on the floor of last month's
conference in Doha, Qatar, one had the impression that the arguments and outcomes had more to do with
protecting commercial interests than protecting wildlife. The process of decision making
has become intensely political. Parties choose to use scientific evidence to support their positions
when it suits them, and refute the validity of the science when it doesn't. Parties also use
procedural technicalities to their political advantage. At times, during a heated debate, the conference
resembles the bearpit of a national parliament. Countries with vested interests in particular issues often send
large delegations and high-ranking politicians and officials in order to persuade other parties to
side with them on crucial votes. Faced with proposals to protect beleaguered stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna and several
species of shark, Japan sent around 50 delegates to coerce island states and developing nations into supporting their opposition. It
used claims of cultural bias, veiled threats, trade incentives and aid packages. Serving sushi derived from Atlantic bluefin tuna at a
lavish reception for delegates the night before the vote was a particularly cynical move. The Zambian delegation rolled out
Chieftainess Chiawa, head of a prominent indigenous group, to play the "poverty card" in support of their efforts to secure
permission from the conference to downlist their elephant population and sell off their stockpiled ivory; her pleas not to let her
people starve when considering the fate of Zambia's valuable ivory stocks were impassioned, if somewhat lacking in logic. CITES
EXPLAINED Threatened organisms listed on three appendices depending on level of risk Appendix 1 - all international trade
banned Appendix 2 - international trade monitored and regulated Appendix 3 - trade bans by individual governments, others asked
to assist "Uplisting" - moving organism to a more protective appendix; "downlisting" - the reverse Conferences of the Parties (COPs)
held every three years CITES administered by UN Environment Programme (Unep) The European Union, whose 27 votes
are a powerful force, votes as a bloc despite wide differences of opinion between EU
member states on some issues. Surely if a party firmly believes that science and evidence
supports a particular view, it should be obliged to vote accordingly, and not be forced to vote
differently by political arrangement? The UK broke ranks by voting in favour of Atlantic bluefin
tuna protection, incurring the wrath (and no doubt further sanctions down the line) of its EU partners.
These and other factors had a major bearing on the voting on a number of important proposals. Attempts to gain CITES
listings for marine species threatened with extinction because of overfishing, including bluefin
tuna and hammerhead sharks, failed to gain the necessary support, in spite of UN Food and
Agriculture Organization endorsement. As a consequence, these species - like so many other overfished marine stocks
- remain at the mercy of Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), the very organisations that have presided over
their near demise. Poor arguments Delegates in favour of maintaining trade in certain threatened species
often claim that limiting trade will harm the economies of poor communities, or reduce the opportunity for
people to obtain essential resources. However, most shark fishing is carried out in international waters by
large commercial vessels to serve the tastes of the growing middle classes in East Asia for shark fin
soup, and 80% of Atlantic bluefin tuna ends up as sushi in Japanese restaurants. Red and pink corals are disappearing
fast in order to supply nothing more essential than markets for jewellery and trinkets. Yet they all failed to
gain protection. In any event, there is nothing that will devastate a poor coastal community more
than the complete collapse of a stock of fish, removing a potential resource for the generations to come. Satanic
salvation Some of the decisions and resolutions adopted by the conference, though, will have important conservation benefits. The
conference operates on a budget of around $6m - not much more than the value of some of the yachts moored in Doha's bay outside
the conference centre Several species of Madagascan plants, Latin American amphibians, and reptiles have received CITES listings
restricting international trade. The unsung Satanic beetle from Bolivia gained an Appendix 2 listing to protect it from unscrupulous
collectors. Protection for many other species has been strengthened, including antelopes, rhinos, tigers, snakes and freshwater
turtles; and the conference eventually rejected proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to be allowed to sell off their elephant ivory
stockpiles. Demand led CITES seems to be most successful when dealing with species for which international trade poses a
significant threat but where financial or economic considerations are limited. It gets into difficulty when it tries to
deal with species of high commercial value. The international trade value of timber and
fish products dwarfs that of all other species put together. Yet despite demand for many tree and fish
species driving them towards extinction in the wild, the vast majority of attempts to introduce
or strengthen protection for them failed at this conference. French customs officer with tusk The
conference did not approve further sales in ivory As we go forward, it is vital that the conference exercises its mandate to regulate
trade in these species. Exploitation of, and trade in, wildlife and wildlife products is driven by demand. In an ideal world, we would
control trade in endangered species by reducing the demand, by educating people in consumer states. However, in the face of
criticism concerning "interference with national sovereign rights", "cultural traditions" and "ignorance of poverty", such efforts are
unlikely to succeed - certainly not in time to save many of the species this conference discussed. So, while continuing with demand
reduction efforts, the focus is on controlling the supply through national and international regulation, effective enforcement and
severe penalties for offenders who try to obtain, ship or trade in wildlife products illegally. The growing involvement of
sophisticated, well-funded and increasingly armed criminal organisations in the illegal wildlife trade was recognised at the
conference, along with the need for enforcement efforts to match this level of sophistication if it is to be effective. Wildlife crime,
long seen as "soft", is now up there with the trade in drugs, weapons and people in terms of its significance and the way it operates.
Only game in town? So is CITES still an effective force for species conservation? There is a feeling
among many conservationists that Doha may have been our last chance to give real, meaningful
protection for some species - and that we missed it. However, for all its faults, CITES is the one international
convention specifically targeted at controlling trade in endangered species, so it is the international legal framework with which we
have to work. The conference operates on a budget of around $6m - not much more than the value of
some of the yachts moored in Doha's bay outside the conference centre. Perhaps what CITES needs
is a bigger budget, sharper teeth, and some way of taking some of the politics and vested interests
out of its proceedings. The protection of many species affected by trade requires international cooperation and protection,
because they are captured in one country, transported through others, and consumed in others still. If CITES won't provide
this international protection, who will?
 DEFORESTATION
The WTO interferes with conservation efforts – deforestation
Tarasofsky and Pfahl, 1 (Richard, Commercial Councillor and Senior Trade Commissioner at
Embassy of Canada to Germany, and Stefanie, Senior Fellow at Adelphi Research, December,
Trading Away the Last Ancient Forests: the threats to forests from trade liberalization under
the WTO,
http://www.iatp.org/files/Trading_Away_the_Last_Ancient_Forests_The_Thre.htm/ms)
The rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) currently interfere with efforts to conserve
and sustainably use the world's forests. The lack of certainty on the relationship between WTO
rules and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) threaten to undermine the full
effectiveness of MEA rules aimed at forests. Similarly, WTO rules "chill" the full implementation of
forest conservation provisions and the development of trade measures in MEAs. WTO rules do not allow
countries to apply economic pressure to rogue countries that are massively destroying their forests. At the
same time, WTO rules prevent countries from using export bans to promote sustainable
development, may not allow the application of independent voluntary forest certification, and
may interfere with the full application of the precautionary principle. WTO rules may prevent
appropriate protection of traditional forest-related knowledge and effective efforts to combat
illegal trade in forest products. Despite the commitment to sustainable development and
environmental protection in the Preamble of the Agreement Establishing the WTO, the WTO
does not contain rules that ensure that trade policy supports the conservation and sustainable
use of forests.

Undermines traditional knowledge – key to solve deforestation

Tarasofsky and Pfahl, 1 (Richard, Commercial Councillor and Senior Trade Commissioner at
Embassy of Canada to Germany, and Stefanie, Senior Fellow at Adelphi Research, December,
Trading Away the Last Ancient Forests: the threats to forests from trade liberalization under
the WTO,
http://www.iatp.org/files/Trading_Away_the_Last_Ancient_Forests_The_Thre.htm/ms)
Several international instruments affirm the value of traditional knowledge, such as the
Convention No. 169 on Indigenous Peoples of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and
the Draft UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples. As is recognised by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Forests (IPF) and Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), this knowledge is an
important component of sustainable forest management, and therefore it must be
protected [34]. Indigenous and local people are often the custodians of biodiversity, and
protecting their knowledge is a potentially powerful incentive for them to continue to conserve
the biodiversity. However, not only does the WTO not contain any mechanisms for protecting
traditional knowledge, but indeed the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) restricts the means available for recognising and protecting
traditional knowledge. In addition, it may not prevent biopiracy, by unscrupulous
individuals claiming patents for inventions based on traditional knowledge. Indeed, many
developed countries are using the TRIPS Agreement to prevent countries from requiring the
prior informed consent of the country of origin in patent applications based on genetic
resources. The TRIPS Agreement is based on conventional (Western) intellectual property
rights, which are not appropriate to protect the collective and often oral nature of traditional
knowledge.

Extinction
Haan, 2008 (Mia den, IT consultant, “Deforestation is Affecting the Human Race In Many
Different Ways”, 6/14, https://planetarychanges.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/deforestation-
affects-humanity-in-many-different-ways/ /ms)
Most people need to implement a much better, ecologically friendly lifestyle before it is too late,
and nature takes its course with further calamities. If most of humanity does not implement
improvements in its life and does not make ecologically sustaining lifestyle changes but continue
to damage and pollute the planet, there will not be a liveable environment in the near future.
Our ecological system is the most important part of this planetary system and it must be
conserved. Trees are of utmost importance to have an ecologically balanced
environment. Without trees, there will be no chance of surviving, not only because of
the need for oxygen or because of the lack of paper and other commodities, but in particular
because this ecological structure is part of the planet’s ecological foundation plane. Trees are
much more important to the well-being of humanity than most people know. They create energy
forms and hold much of the balance on the planet, in particular, those trees that are part of a
forest. These energy forms can be enormous and can keep people in balance mentally,
emotionally, and, to some degree, allow people to be less affected by air pollutants. Our forests
must therefore be protected.

causes extinction
Science Daily 11 ("Biodiversity Key to Earth's Life-Support Functions in a CHanging World,",
August 11, /ms)

The biological diversity of organisms on Earth is not just something we enjoy when taking a walk through a
ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2011) —

is also the basis for countless products and services provided by nature,
blossoming meadow in spring; it

including food, building materials, and medicines as well as the self-purifying qualities of water
and protection against erosion. These so-called ecosystem services are what makes Earth
inhabitable for humans. They are based on ecological processes, such as photosynthesis, the production of biomass, or
nutrient cycles. Since biodiversity is on the decline, both on a global and a local scale, researchers are asking the question as to what role the diversity of organisms plays in
In an international research group led
maintaining these ecological processes and thus in providing the ecosystem's vital products and services.

by Prof. Dr. Michel Loreau from Canada, ecologists from ten different universities and research institutes, including
Prof. Dr. Michael Scherer-Lorenzen from the University of Freiburg, compiled findings from numerous biodiversity

experiments and reanalyzed them. These experiments simulated the loss of plant species and attempted to determine the consequences for the
functioning of ecosystems, most of them coming to the conclusion that a higher level of biodiversity is accompanied by an increase in ecosystem processes. However, the findings
were always only valid for a certain combination of environmental conditions present at the locations at which the experiments were conducted and for a limited range of
ecosystem processes. In a study published in the current issue of the journal Nature, the research group investigated the extent to which the positive effects of diversity still apply
under changing environmental conditions and when a multitude of processes are taken into account. They found that 84 percent of the 147 plant species included in the
The more years, locations, ecosystem processes, and
experiments promoted ecological processes in at least one case.

scenarios of global change -- such as global warming or land use intensity -- the experiments took into account, the
more plant species were necessary to guarantee the functioning of the ecosystems. Moreover, other
species were always necessary to keep the ecosystem processes running under the different
combinations of influencing factors. These findings indicate that much more biodiversity is
necessary to keep ecosystems functioning in a world that is changing ever faster. The protection
of diversity is thus a crucial factor in maintaining Earth's life-support functions.
 ECONOMY
WTO is failing developing countries – hurts growth
Walker, 11 (Aurelie, is trade policy advisor at the Fairtrade Foundation. Has specialised in EU
trade relations with Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. She has worked as trade negotiator for
an East African government, as advisor to business and government in Southern Africa on the
Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations and for European Institutions and think tanks,
11-14-2011, "The WTO has failed developing nations," Guardian,
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/nov/14/wto-fails-
developing-countries/ms)
Ten years ago, a new World Trade Organisation that put developing country needs at the centre of the international trade
negotiation agenda was proposed. The Ministerial Declaration adopted at the start of the Doha Development Round of trade
negotiations, on 14 November 2001, was a promising response to the anti-globalisation riots of the 1990s. But the WTO
membership has failed to deliver the promised pro-development changes. Finding
"development" in the Doha Development Round today is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Developing countries have
been completely sidelined by the economic and political interests of global powers. Here are 10
examples of how the WTO has failed the poor: 1. Cotton: the Fairtrade Foundation revealed last year how the
$47bn in subsidies paid to rich-country producers in the past 10 years has created barriers for
the 15 million cotton farmers across west Africa trying to trade their way out of poverty, and how 5
million of the world's poorest farming families have been forced out of business and into deeper
poverty because of those subsidies. 2. Agricultural subsidies: beyond cotton, WTO members have failed
even to agree how to reduce the huge subsidies paid to rich world farmers, whose
overproduction continues to threaten the livelihoods of developing world farmers . 3. Trade
agreements: the WTO has also failed to clarify the deliberately ambiguous rules on concluding trade
agreements that allow the poorest countries to be manipulated by the rich states. In Africa, in
negotiations with the EU, countries have been forced to eliminate tariffs on up to 90% of their trade because no clear rules exist to
protect them. 4. Special treatment: the rules for developing countries, called "special and differential treatment" rules, were meant to
be reviewed to make them more precise, effective and operational. But the WTO has failed to work through the 88 proposals that
would fill the legal vacuum. 5. Medicine: the poorest in developing countries are unable to access affordable
medicine because members have failed to clarify ambiguities between the need for governments
to protect public health on one hand and on the other to protect the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical
companies. 6. Legal costs: the WTO pledged to improve access to its expensive and complex legal system, but has failed. In 15 years
of dispute settlement under the WTO, 400 cases have been initiated. No African country has acted as a complainant and only one
least developed country has ever filed a claim. Advertisement 7. Protectionist economic policies: one of the WTO's five core functions
agreed at its inception in 1995 was to achieve more coherence in global economic policy-making. Yet the WTO failed to curb the
speedy increase in the number of protectionist measures applied by G20 countries in response to the global economic crisis over the
past two years – despite G20 leaders' repeated affirmations of their "unwavering" commitment to resist all forms of protectionist
measures. 8. Natural disaster: the WTO fails to alleviate suffering when it has the opportunity to do so. In the case of natural
disaster, the membership will have taken almost two years to agree and implement temporary
trade concessions for Pakistan, where severe flooding displaced 20 million people in 2010 and
caused $10bn of damage. Those measures, according to the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development,
would have boosted Pakistan's exports to the EU by at least €100m this year. 9. Decision-making: the
WTO makes most of its decisions by consensus – and achieving consensus between 153 countries is nearly impossible. But this
shows another failure of the WTO: to break the link between market size and political weight that would give small and poor
countries a voice in the trade negotiations. 10. Fair trade: 10 years after the start of the Doha Development
Round, governments have failed to make trade fair. As long as small and poor countries remain without a voice,
the role of campaigning organisations, such as Traidcraft and Fairtrade Foundation, which are working together to eliminate cotton
subsidies, will remain critical. The WTO has failed to live up to its promises over the past decade, which reveals a wider systemic
problem in the global community. True and lasting solutions to global economic problems can
only come when the model of global competitiveness between countries becomes
one of genuine cooperation.

Increased WTO cred will cause financial crises in the East Asian region and other
developing countries
Gavin, 7 (Brigid, Research Fellow at United Nations University, Regional representation in the
WTO A new role for regional trade clubs?,
http://www.cris.unu.edu/fileadmin/workingpapers/20071211115556.W-2007-13.pdf/ms)
Since the creation of the WTO, it has been increasingly difficult to achieve cooperation in the
WTO. The propensity to cooperate is determined by interaction between the degree of
congruence between Members' preferences and the robustness of the institutional framework.
Decreasing congruence of the preferences of Member countries has become more obvious and
entrenched. While industrial countries display their marked preference for 'deep integration',
this is not shared by developing countries.10 A similar situation exists with regard to non-trade
issues such as environmental and labour standards. And while developing countries insist on
expanding special and differential provisions, many industrial countries are strongly opposed to
it. Given those factors, the creation of a powerful institutional framework that constrains
options available to developing countries, the resulting outcome has turned into a situation of
policy paralysis. The extension of the WTO into the new fields has impaired the ability of
governments to continue providing public goods that they have traditionally done. A series of
financial crises, the worst of which was in East Asia in 1997-98, has shown how
financial liberalisation advanced by the multilateral institutions has undermined
financial stability in a number of developing countries. The trade-related intellectual
property rights (TRIPs) impinges on governments ability to provide public health in many
developing countries. The provision of consumer and environmental protection has been made
more complicated in industrialised countries.

Continued development in these nations is key to the global economy

Tyson, 15 (Judith, PhD in financial sector development , "In an uncertain global economy, poor
countries must innovate in 2015," ODI, https://www.odi.org/comment/9154-global-economy-
2015-poor-countries-growth-trade/ms)
Developing countries have achieved unprecedented economic progress since the millennium. Driven by a
buoyant global economy, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell by 700 million between 1990 and 2010. Although more
than a billion people continue to live in extreme poverty, this exceptional progress suggests that ending such deprivation is within
our grasp. But risks to the global economy are threatening that vision. The recovery from the financial crisis of
2007 is anaemic, brittle and fraught with uncertainty. Termed by the IMF the ‘new mediocre’, the economic outlook is – at best – for
continued stagnation in advanced economies. In China, a key export market for poor countries in the last decade, the economy is
rapidly slowing. High levels of unemployment and underemployment, growth in inequality to levels unprecedented since the 19th
century, and the impact of environmental degradation and climate change are threatening political and social stability. For
developing countries, becoming increasingly integrated into the global economy has been key to
progress in alleviating poverty over the past 15 years. Integration offered access to buoyant international trade
and positive financial flows. But for today’s poor countries, the ‘new mediocre’ is blocking their ability to replicate this integrationist
path. Given this, what strategies can poor countries now use to continue reducing poverty? Firstly, export growth
remains vital. No country – ever, in four centuries of economic history – has seen significant
economic development without export growth. Equally important is productivity growth, the basic driver of rising
incomes. This growth needs to be achieved in agriculture but also in the manufacturing and service
sectors. But innovation is needed if export and productivity growth are to be achieved in the new economic environment. What
are the innovative strategies that might be successful? Certainly they should include a focus on growth in regional trade. Currently
this is low, particularly for the world’s poorest regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Increasing regional trade
could generate significant growth – without the product development and transport
infrastructure costs that more remote markets present. The rise of new middle-income countries – especially
China – may also offer opportunities. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia could develop more low-skill manufacturing as wage
inflation in middle-income countries elsewhere makes them relatively attractive locations for global companies and supply chains.
The new middle classes are also driving increasing demand for new consumer products and services, and these offer alternative
export markets to advanced economies. At the national and global level, policies need to reflect the new realities, guarding against
the risks that are building and supporting long-term stable, sustainable economic growth. Developing countries need to avoid boom-
bust cycles and build strong institutions that serve their people. Equally, advanced economies should take responsibility for
reforming financial and political institutions so that they are accountable and serve the needs of all of the global community, not just
their elites. All countries need to recognise the role that fiscal policy can and should
play in managing stable, long-term growth and employment. As 2015 starts, economic
uncertainty and risk have never been higher. But there are opportunities to continue the
trend towards eliminating extreme poverty, the first of which is the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum
later this month. Rich countries’ concerns about risk and uncertainty must not overshadow the
priorities of poor countries where poverty remains concentrated. This means continued reform of the
international financial system and trade opportunities for developing countries. The Forum offers an opportunity to progress this
agenda. Let’s seize that opportunity and make sure that the integrationist path remains open for the benefit of all.

<collapse causes war>

 FARMING
WTO failure to account for developing countries will have adverse impacts on the
farming industry
Kuriam, 15 (Winfred, Business Reporter at The Daily Nation, Africa: WTO Accused of Hurting
Poor Countries By Its Imbalanced Trade Negotiations, AllAfrica, December 16, 2015,
http://allafrica.com/stories/201512170322.html/ms)
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been accused of failing to balance Doha trade negotiations
since they began in 2001 thereby disadvantaging developing economies. South African-based ActionAid
said the choice facing developing countries is between submitting to a plantation-model
economy, in which rich countries make the rules, and insisting on an equitable trade agreement
that supports sustainable development. "Developing country governments should take this prospect as a call to
action," said Marie Clarke, the executive director of ActionAid International SA. The Doha talks that have been ongoing for the last
14 years are aimed at lowering trade barriers around the world in order to facilitate increased global trade. Over 80 trade lobbyist
from around the world currently attending the WTO conference in Nairobi hope to settle on trade tariffs and taxes to be used
worldwide. According to Ms Clarke, these countries must assert their sovereignty and not be intimidated into agreeing to what will
deny their countries the benefits of world trade. ActionAid has also accused the UN for failing to fulfil a set of
development goals that include the urgent reduction of gross inequalities. "Giving up on the pledge the
WTO made in 2001 to resolve the distortions that reinforce growing inequality between developed and
developing countries would signal a radical capitulation by developing countries," she said. NEW
'ISSUES' ActionAid is particularly concerned about the impact on small food producers --
2.5 billion people, about 35 per cent of the world's population -- who provide about 80
per cent of the food consumed. The organisation says it fears that should that WTO 2015 conference divert its
attention to the new issues aired by negotiators, unresolved development agendas might be left unattended to. "Without the
assurances we need from the WTO development agenda, developing countries will be at an
immediate disadvantage in tackling entirely new topics," said Ms Clarke. ActionAid on behalf of African
countries has posed a challenge to the United States and other 'wealthy nations' to provide
developing countries with a plan to ensure food stock, support of small producers and offer
protection from rich countries dumping products at below-market rates. And on her part, Kenya's
Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed hinted on the possibility of putting an end to WTO's negotiating function if all nations have no
say in setting trade deals. Speaking during the start of trade negotiations, she said developing countries will be at a
serious disadvantage as talks would shift to regional and bilateral agreements where rich
countries will have more sway. This follows recent statements by negotiators that appear as dangerous agreements
dependent on other trade deal fulfilments. These negotiations have been speculated to give the US its goal of getting a raft of new
issues added to the Doha development Agenda.

Leads to laundry list of impacts

Cribb, 10 (Julian, journalist and editor of several newspapers and books., science editor for "The
Australian "and head of public affairs for CSIRO “The coming famine: the global food crisis and what we
can do to avoid it,” p. 14-17/ms)
If large regions of the world run short of food, land, or water in the decades that lie ahead, then wholesale,
bloody wars are liable to follow. These wars have already begun, although many of today's governments and media seem unconscious
of the fact. We should not be surprised. Famine and war have been inseparable Horsemen of the Apocalypse
since antiquity. In the modern era famine notably propelled events as significant as the French Revolution,
where what started as a bread crisis ultimately claimed a half million lives in the ensuing civil war and its civilian massacres; and the Russian
Revolution, where food protests unleashed a civil war that devoured nine million human lives between 1917 and 1922.2 Even World
War II had an imponderable component in the struggle for productive land—or lebensraum as Nazi philosophy defined it. Yet
food, land, and water are nowadays widely disregarded as the wellsprings of war. Carter continued: The devastation occurs primarily in countries
whose economies depend on agriculture but lack the means to make their farmland productive. These are developing countries such as Sudan, Congo,
Colombia, Liberia, Peru, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka. . . . The economies of Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan were built on strong
agriculture. But many developing countries have shifted their priorities away from farming in favor of urbanization, or they have reduced investments
in agriculture because of budget shortages. At the same time, industrialized countries continue to cut their foreign aid budgets, which fund vital
scientific research and extension work to improve farming in developing countries. "The message is clear," he concluded. "There can be no peace until
people have enough to eat. Hungry people are not peaceful people."3 For decades many academics and policy makers have assumed that war is the
parent and famine its child, yet recent conflicts in which critical food shortages have played a part in igniting events have begun to beg the question, Is
it war that drives famine, or do scarcities of food, land, and water also sometimes lead to war? Scholars have closely dissected the chicken, but few so far
have probed the egg—yet this may be critical to an understanding of one of the primary forces shaping our times.4 The shift began almost imperceptibly
in 1999, when a groundbreaking study by scholars affiliated with the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo, an independent think tank devoted
to research on global conflict, concluded that with the ending of the Cold War, " the
new internal wars, extremely bloody in
terms of civilian casualties, reflect subsistence crises and are largely apolitical."'' This hinted, for the first
time, that resource scarcity of food, land, and water could become a major trigger for conflict rather than merely a
consequence of it. (The prevailing expert view, however, still mainly considers scarcity a consequence.) At the dawn of the century of humanity's
greatest resource scarcities it was a serious wake-up call, yet one through which many slumbered on. "The crises stem from the failure of development,
the loss of livelihood and the collapse of states. These factors add up to a vicious cycle," the Oslo scholars Indra de Soysa and Nils Petter Gleditsch
explained. "The causes of armed conflict are perpetuated by conflict itself. People fight over vital necessities such as food, to protect a livelihood. . . .
[S]tatcs that can provide such necessities also create conditions conducive to peace and prosperity."6 Peace
and prosperity, in turn,
create the conditions necessary for democratic government, civil society, and a culture of peace,
they added. Democracy is not commonly thought of as a food by-product, but it probably is. In their study,
de Soysa and Gleditsch published a disturbing map (sec map i). It showed all the countries of the world where food production was most critical to the
survival of the nation-state—and all the places where, in the previous ten years, war and strife had broken out. The coincidence was more than striking.
If your country is at the mercy of a shaky food supply, the map implies, watch out for war. The opposite was
equally evident: those places where food was plentiful—"old" Europe, North America, Australasia, and parts of Latin America—had escaped mass
bloodletting within their own territories during the decade. Peace, the study implied, prefers a full platter. The causes of these wars included disputes
between new settlers and existing landholders, unjust land distribution due to corrupt ownership or government, environmental degradation so bad as
to reduce the food supply, lack of access to water, and famine. Environmental wars, so far, are rare—but several commentators think that such conflicts
may become more frequent as humanity presses against the limits of the Earth's resources. "Conditions affecting the livelihoods of the majority of
people in poor countries arc at the heart of the internal violence. The inability to meet food requirements drives people to adopt alternative survival
strategies, one of which is to join rebellions and criminal insurgencies. In such situations the use of violence is primarily for economic goals, rather than
the political ends that drove many revolutionary movements during the Cold War," de Soysa and Gleditsch wrote.' Added to this may be another factor
more primal still: love of one's children. Of
all the indicators that point most reliably to government collapse
and the probability of conflict, none is more brutally eloquent than the death rate among
children. Starvation and malnutrition-related disease are the main causes of high infant
mortality. Those countries with the most child deaths also have high levels of conflict.8 Love of
children, horribly, is what may—at times—furnish the motivation for genocide: the blind desire to
exterminate "the other," to eliminate the competition they pose for the basics of life. The roots of
the 1994 Rwandan genocide were on the farm: "The country relied heavily on coffee exports for hard currency and
government revenues. The collapse of world prices in the early 1990s led to high unemployment, reduced farm incomes, reduced social spending, and a
citizenry receptive to government incitement of ethnic and political violence."9 Most studies still focus on the salient features of genocide rather than its
underlying drivers. There remains a gap in our understanding of what propels societies toward this self-mutilating behavior—and part of the answer
may well lie in scarcities of food, land, and water. Some observers also claim a link between food insecurity and
terrorism, pointing out that hungry countries are among those most likely to furnish terrorism
recruits. In 2002, heads of state from fifty countries met at a development summit in Mexico where they discussed the role of poverty and hunger
as a breeding ground for terrorism. "No-one in this world can feel comfortable or safe while so many are suffering and deprived," UN secretary general
Kofi Annan told them. The president of the UN General Assembly, Han Seung-Soo, added that the world's poorest countries were a breeding ground for
violence and despair. The Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo added, "To speak of development is to speak also of a strong and determined fight
against terrorism."10 Around the world many guerrilla and insurgent causes—such as Shining Path, the Tamil Tigers,
and Abu Sayyaf—have claimed injustice in land ownership and use as one of their motivating causes.
 HEG
WTO undermines US leadership
Stephan, 2000 (Paul B, Professor at University of Virginia School of Law, Sheriff or Prisoner?
The United States and the World Trade Organization, Public Law and Legal Theory Working
Papers, http://papers.ssrn.com/ sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=224802/ms)
In the five years that the WTO dispute resolution process has been up and running, the United
States has faced setbacks in three important policy arenas. The WTO denounced its efforts to take the lead in
protecting migrating wildlife, refused to challenge opaque relationships between bureaucracies and domestic producers that may
harm its exporters, and thwarted its attempt to reconcile its income tax, with its perverse effects on exporters, with a consumption-
tax world. These defeats have significance in and of themselves, because they complicate U.S. efforts to
address problems affecting many billions of dollars in trade, investment and revenues. Just as
outcomes, the WTO decisions suggest serious limitations on the ability of the United
States to shape the international environment. The way the WTO organs have justified their decisions
may have even greater significance. They talk as if they have lawmaking power, in the same sense that a common law court creates,
and does not just interpret, norms of conduct. Moreover, they exercise their discretionary authority in a manner
that expands their power at the expense of the United States. By insisting on a tight fit between trade
sanctions and their professed objectives, the organs reduce the ability of the United States to use economic
rewards and punishments to maximize its overall influence. By refusing to assume that industry-government
entanglements have an inherent potential for abuse, they maximize their scrutiny of U.S. regulation in relation
to that of other major economic powers. And by treating all compromises worked out within the GATT structure, but
not memorialized in fully negotiated multilateral instruments, as nonbinding, they increase their capacity to alter the
status quo in favor of expanding their own powers.

<heg decline impact – can be found in multilat bad>

 RTA
Decreased confidence in the WTO will cause a shift to regional trade agreements
Schott, 08 (Jeffrey, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, The
future of the multilateral trading system in a multi-polar world, http://www.die-
gdi.de/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/Futureofthemultilateraltradingsystem.pdf/ms)
For developing countries, RTAs have become increasingly important, especially given the low
expectations that the Doha Round can fulfill its development objectives. Given the lackluster
pace of the WTO talks, and the ongoing challenges posed by globalization and competition from
China and India, many developing countries have turned to RTAs to complement and often
propel domestic economic reforms. If properly crafted, RTAs can contribute to economic growth
by spurring competition in domestic markets and dampen-ing inflation – which in turn helps
create a more stable and attractive environment for in-vestment. Indeed, competition for
investment drives many of the RTAs to which develop-ing countries participate. If a country
maintains high levels of protection, costly regula-tions, or discriminatory standards, investors
generally will opt to locate in other countries that have policies more conducive to production
and investment.

RTAs good – increase trade liberalization and multilat

Schott, 08 (Jeffrey, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, The
future of the multilateral trading system in a multi-polar world, http://www.die-
gdi.de/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/Futureofthemultilateraltradingsystem.pdf/ms)
The most important benefit of RTAs is that they seek to reduce participating country trade
barriers beyond the countries’ current WTO commitments. If they are true to their name, RTAs will
commit to eliminate barriers on “substantially all” trade between the partner countries (some are
obviously less perfect in this regard than others). In contrast, WTO negotiators pursue incremental reforms in each trade round,
leaving substantial barriers in place after the accords are fully implemented. The difference can 15 be put simply: RTAs achieve
deeper cuts in trade protection than WTO reforms but the RTA liberalization is accorded to only a few countries, while multilateral
agreements are applied on an MFN basis to the entire WTO membership. Deeper cuts, but by fewer countries, and applied on a
discriminatory basis. Advocates of RTAs argue that, on balance, the pacts are trade
creating and spur positive welfare gains for participating countries as well as, over
time, for third countries due to the stimulus to growth in the RTA region. Second,
RTAs often create commitments in areas beyond the scope of existing WTO obligations. These
“WTO-plus” provisions can set useful precedents for future multilateral talks. Indeed, the US-
Canada FTA provided useful precedents for the GATS, and the US-Chile FTA may provide a template for a WTO e-commerce
provision. More recent US FTAs with Peru and other countries include substantive obligations on
labor and the environment—areas where the WTO footprint has been small but will likely expand in the
future (see concluding section).6 In these and other WTO-plus areas, discriminatory application of RTA rules is possible. However,
the demands of the marketplace and the costs of applying several different standards push for
convergence towards a unified set of regulations. In addition to setting precedents, RTAs provide a real
world classroom to help educate trade negotiators. Negotiators learn by doing—it is hard to know the
sticking points of an issue until one tries to negotiate a solution for it. Such education is 6 Pursuant to the May 10, 2007 “Bipartisan
Agreement” between the Bush administration and the Congress, the US-Peru FTA, signed December 14, 2007, contains extensive
provisions on labor that go well beyond those in prior US accords. The new labor template is already being emulated and augmented
by the European Union in its free trade talks with Korea. 16 invaluable for developing countries exposed to the rulemaking puzzles
presented in talks on services, intellectual property, and other new issues on the WTO agenda. Third, RTAs “lock-in”
domestic policy reform because they raise the cost of policy reversal, if the change violates the
terms of the agreement and makes the country potentially liable to trade retaliation. In this regard,
RTAs help buffer governments from protectionist demands that may be politically
alluring but economically undesirable. In turn, uncertainty about the business and the
regulatory environment is reduced, facilitating investment and development. Fourth, RTAs
strengthen relationships among partner countries and help build alliances for WTO reforms in
areas of common interest. The launch of the Doha Round in 2001 succeeded in large measure due to the closer trade
relations resulting from US and EU trade initiatives with Latin American and African countries.
RTAs increase trade liberalization
Elger, 06 ( Paul, Professor at Stockholm School of Economics, Robin Hertz, Professor at
Graduate Institute of International Studies, Adelheid Neusser, Profesor at Institut de Sciences
Politiques, May 13, REGIONALISM – A MOVE TOWARDS OR AWAY FROM FREE
TRADE/ms)
Regionalism causes liberalisation, a theoretical approach Introducing the “domino theory”
Baldwin analyzes RTA’s expansion path.23 Suppose a new RTA is formed or that an existing
RTA further reduce barriers of trade between the members .This shifts the political equilibrium
resulting from anti-membership and pro-membership in countries who previously preferred to
be non-members, which might cause a country to want to join the RTA. Assuming the RTA to be
open to new membership, the addition of a member enlarges the internal markets causing
higher costs from trade diversion and higher potential gains from a larger market access for
outsiders. These will then have a higher incentive to join. Baldwin concludes that this domino
effect will enlarge the block until all nations who depend enough on the block will sign on to the
RTA. Baldwin also shows how liberalisation will result in further liberalisation using the
“juggernaut” theory.24He assumes that tariff levels are set by, and balance the forces for and
against protection. The supporters of high tariffs are generally import-competing firms and their
workers, while the forces against protection are the exporting firms and their employed.
Multilateral trade negotiations, as well as RTAs, are both based on a reciprocity principle. When
negotiations regarding lowering tariffs begin, the principle of reciprocity causes exporters to
lobby against domestic tariff to achieve lower tariff in foreign markets. Baldwin assumes that the
demand for protection is unchanged, thus the political equilibrium switches, and the tariff level
that balances the forces will be lowered. As a result of lowered tariffs the export sector that are
proponents of free trade will be strengthened, while the opponents of free trade, the import-
competing sector will weaken. RTAs will therefore foster multilateral liberalisation
and vice versa. In this view RTAs can strengthen the multilateral process, and be
building blocks on the way to global free trade.
 WAR
WTO used as an extension of power by great powers – raises tensions
Hawkins, 3 (William, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and
Industry Council, Successfully Rebuilding Iraq Requires Rejection of 'Globalization, American
Economic Alert, April 23, 2003
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=807/ms)
The Bush Administration has good reasons not to trust certain other members of the UN
Security Council on Iraq. As Washington administers the postwar reconstruction effort, it must
structure rules of origin regulations in line with geopolitics at both the prime and sub-contractor
levels. If foreign governments and corporations are free to act against American interests
without cost to themselves, how can they be deterred from doing so again? The door must be
slammed on them, hard. European Union Trade Minister Pascal Lamy of France has raised the
question of whether a U.S.-led reconstruction effort might violate WTO rules of non-
discrimination. This is another attempt by the EU to expand the WTO into a tool of great
power diplomacy. Multilateral agencies are ceasing to be consensual bodies promoting
cooperation and simply becoming new arenas for political struggle – just as any realist
should expect.

Bilateral trade decreases escalation – studies prove

Martin, Mayer and Thoenig, 6 (Martin, Professor of Economics at Paris School of
Economics, Mayer, professor of economics at the University of Paris, Thoenig, Professor of
Economics at the University of Geneva, [Phillipe, Thierry, and Mathias, Make Trade Not
War?/ms)
We test the theoretical predictions that bilateral and multilateral trade have opposite effects on
the probability of military conflicts on the 1950-2000 period using a data set from the Correlates Of War (COW)
project, that makes available a very precise description of interstate armed conflicts. The mechanism at work in our
theoretical model rests on the hypothesis that the absence of peace disrupts trade and therefore
puts trade gains at risk. We first test this hypothesis. Using a gravity-type model of trade, we find that
bilateral trade costs indeed increase significantly with a bilateral conflict. However, multilateral
trade costs do not increase significantly with conflict. Second, using a theory grounded-econometric model, we
test the predictions of the model related to the contradictory effects of bilateral and multilateral
trade on conflict. In the pooled regressions, we control for potential contamination by co-determinants of conflict and trade.
We also control for possible country pairfixed effects. Finally, we use an instrument that exerts a positive shock to multilateral trade
anda negative one to bilateral trade, without directly interacting with armed conflicts. We choose the Generalized System of
Preferences (GSP) which are schemes of tariff preferences granted by developedc ountries to developing countries. Our results are
robust to these different estimation strategies, and are quantitatively substantial: historically, between 1960 and 2000, the
increase in bilateral openness for the median country pair separated by less than 1000kms, has led to a
decrease in the probability of military conflict by 22%. However, during the same period, the
growth in multilateral openness has led to an increase in this same probability by
66%.
 AT: WTO SOLVES WAR
Their authors are wrong – WTO doesn’t solve war
Hawkins, 3 (William, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the U.S. Business and
Industry Council, Successfully Rebuilding Iraq Requires Rejection of 'Globalization, American
Economic Alert, April 23, 2003
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=807/ms)
The descendants of Manchester Liberalism, the alliance of left-wing ideology and multinational
corporate greed united by their opposition to the nation-state and great power politics, have
been arguing that the Iraq War is a threat to the "globalization" which they airily proclaim is the
pillar of world progress. In the April 22 Financial Times, former director-general of the World
Trade Organization Peter Sutherland wrote, "Right now the great powers are juggling not only
with the credibility and integrity of the Security Council or the United Nations itself. They are
putting at stake a system of international interdependence and decision-making through
painstaking consensus building that has, for the most part, stood the test of time." He then went
on to claim that the WTO has "quietly demoted commercial conflict as a cause of war. Now there
is an alternative to bearing arms and raising navies in the pursuit of economic interest." But
what "test of time" can he really cite? The years since World War II? Most of that era was
dominated by the Cold War, during which trade and investment followed geopolitical lines. The
post-Cold War period? The 1990s was the decade of globalization, but it was too short a time to
validate any "test." Indeed, looking back over the last 500 years, during which the commercial
and industrial revolutions ushered in a period of economic growth unimaginable in earlier
centuries, the doctrines of Manchester Liberalism have been most conspicuous by their absence.
The great German-American economist Friedrich List exposed the fatal flaw of this liberal
ideology in the 19th century, writing in 1841 that it "has assumed as being actually in existence a
state of things which has yet to come into existence. It assumes the existence of a universal
union and a state of perpetual peace." The 162 years of more nearly perpetual conflict since
have not provided much support for the liberal view.
 WARMING
WTO makes it impossible to solve warming
Walker, 11 (Tejal, trade policy advisor at the Fairtrade Foundation, WTO: Trade Trumps a
Sustainable World Nov 14, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-
matters/2011/nov/14/wto-fails-developing-countries/ms)
In a stunning verdict, the WTO ruled against India’s solar program that has a domestic content
clause. This puts at danger India’s 100,000 MW -- or 100 Giga Watt (GW) – solar program, a
critical component of its pledge in Paris on Climate Change. If India has to meet its Paris
commitments, WTO has ruled that it must now allow India’s tax payers money to also profit the
US companies. According to WTO and the US, trade must trump a sustainable future for the
world. While the US had hauled India to the WTO for supporting local content, half the states in
the US have similar provisions in their renewable programs. In a case filed by the United States
against India, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled that the domestic content
requirement (DCR) in India’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), violate trade
rules. This means that India cannot be protect its local equipment manufacturer. It will be
forced to use the solar modules dumped on it by the US companies, which in turn have been
subsidized by the US. Given that a large number of the states in the US also have subsidy
programs for solar energy with local content guidelines, this case exposes the double standards
of both, the US and the WTO. Forbes calls this ‘a lovely little example of why trade rules are as
they are’. While the intended meaning is very different, the statement nevertheless captures the
essence of WTO of trade rules: protect the rich at the cost of the poor. Except this time, WTO
has also dealt a blow for global warming. Before going into the details of the WTO
judgment, it is necessary to understand the global context within which solar energy deployment
is planned in India. The global climate consensus has travelled a considerable distance from the
Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to the Paris Agreement in 2015. At Kyoto, the world (without the US),
had agreed to a climate deal that required mitigation action -- meaning reduction of carbon
emissions -- only by the developed nations. The Kyoto protocols acknowledged both the
responsibility of the rich nations in causing climate change as well a higher capability to mitigate
it. Almost two decades later, the agreement signed at the 21st Conference of Parties -- COP 21 --
in Paris, absolves the developed countries of all historical responsibility, calling upon even the
poorest countries to contribute to climate change mitigation. After Paris, the shift in Climate
Change mitigation is that while the rich nations may have caused the problem, all the
countries have to solve it together. The Paris Agreement includes the United States and
indeed, the cost of this inclusion has been severe, especially for the less-developed countries.
They have to now contribute to climate change mitigation in one form or the other without any
guarantee of a commensurate financial support from the developed countries. Fast growing
economies such as India, face an even greater pressure to reduce emissions. It is presumably
under this pressure that India has announced ambitious renewable energy targets – 175 GW by
2022 of which the largest component of 100 GW is to come from solar energy projects. The
ambitious plan of installing 100 GW of solar power by 2022, revised upward from an initial
target of 20 GW, reflects the growing optimism about solar power in India and its ability to
provide energy services at costs that are significantly lower than what was earlier thought
possible. However, despite the promise of reducing energy costs, there is still a gap between the
unit cost of power produced from solar panels and that produced from other sources of energy,
as well the cost that Indian consumers can currently afford to pay. The cost of solar powered
electricity is still about two to three times higher than fossil fuel based electricity generation. If
the burden of this higher costs are not to be carried out by the Indian consumers alone, the
diffusion of solar technologies in the existing energy system requires government support. The
Government of India has sought to address this through providing higher feed-in tariffs for solar
power and viability gap funding for solar projects. The obligation of adding solar power plants
therefore increases the burden on government expenditure that has to cater to multiple
developmental demands. Nevertheless, the JNNSM is a necessary component of India’s
contribution to climate change mitigation and therefore India, like other less-developed
countries, has to find ways to make the best of a bad situation. The domestic content
requirement of the JNNSM is an attempt to do just this. The DCR is basically meant to
encourage the local manufacture of solar equipment, by mandating that a certain amount of
installed solar capacity in each phase of the JNNSM is built using modules and cells
manufactured within the country. So less-developed countries with high levels of unemployment
and low access to modern energy services, through such measures, can provide opportunities to
domestic entrepreneurs and boost employment even while contributing to global sustainability.
While the above policy seems like a perfectly logical way to achieve both goals -- of sustainability
and development -- the US Government and WTO say otherwise. According to the judgment,
any support and encouragement to local manufacturers violates trade rules. So India will have to
let its domestic manufactures compete “freely” with foreign manufacturers who may or may not
be subsidized and protected in their respective countries. The result may be that most of India’s
future solar energy plants will use modules and cells manufactured by foreign companies. So,
not only does India reduce emissions through installing 100 GW of solar energy, it also has to
pay the developed countries for this “favour”. This also brings out India’s weak positions in the
recent WTO Ministerial. Apart from failures such as in agriculture, the other key failure is now
apparent. India should have taken up a position that any commitments such as domestic
content should be kept out of Trade Disputes in WTO. Meeting Paris commitments should
trump trade rules. This would have rallied all the developing countries behind it. But for the
current government, who are seeking to cosy up to the US on all fora, this was not on the cards.
India now needs to go back to Climate Change negotiations and WTO with proposals that saving
the world is far more important than so-called trade rules that are heavily skewed in favour of
the rich countries. There has been a tendency among environmentalists, both in India and
abroad, to suggest that domestic climate action in India need not depend on climate action or
the lack of it in developed countries. The Government has been exhorted to pursue an aggressive
green agenda as it would have other collateral benefits. The WTO judgment flies in the face of
this understanding and serves as an important reminder of what it means to achieve sustainable
development under neoliberalism. The problem is not just global warming, but global warming
in the era of neoliberalism. Fighting neoliberalism therefore is a prerequisite to finding
an equitable solution to global warming.

WTO actively undermines climate policies --- India proves

Pierson JD 2015
(Charles, lawyer and contributor to global research: centre for research on globalization, Sept 6,
www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-us-and-the-wto-crushed-indias-subsidies-for-solar-
energy/5474112) //cb
Four hundred million Indians—one quarter of India’s population—have no electricity,
but as far as the United States and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are concerned, they can keep
sitting in the dark. On Wednesday, it was announced that a WTO dispute panel had found that India’s
subsidies for solar power contravene WTO trade rules. India must now remove the
subsidies or face trade sanctions. The United States filed the WTO complaint in 2013. The US alleged that India’s
subsidies for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (NSM) discriminate against foreign
suppliers of solar components. The National Solar Mission is essential to India’s goal of
increasing the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix. India currently produces 255 gigawatts of
electricity. 71% of that is generated from coal (International Energy Agency, 2012). Only 3 gigawatts of India’s electricity is produced
from solar power, 20 gigawatts from wind power. Established in 2010, as part of India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change,
NSM’s ambitious goal is to generate 100 gigawatts of electricity annually from solar power by
2022, according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The subsidies which provoked the ire of the United
States are in the form of Domestic Content Requirements (DCRs). These mandate that a set proportion of specified
materials used in the NSM must be manufactured in India. In Phase I of the NSM, the DCRs only covered solar cells and solar
modules. From the US standpoint, that was bearable: US companies export few solar cells and solar modules to India. What
worried the US was that India might extend the DCRs to include solar thin film technologies. US
exports of thin film technologies have dominated the Indian market. US fears were realized in
October 2013 when Phase II of NSM extended the DCRs to include thin film technologies. The
WTO decision issued privately to the two nations last week agreed with the United States that India’s DCRs
discriminate against foreign manufacturers. This was no surprise. A few years earlier,
Ontario had launched a similar effort to encourage the growth of solar power. Japan and the
European Union objected to the local content requirements (LCRs) included in Ontario’s Green Economy and Green
Ecology Act (GEA). In 2013, the WTO Appellate Body ruled that the GEA’s local content requirements were
discriminatory. Oddly, the trade dispute has taken place at a time when the two countries, at least on the surface, appear to be
on good terms. Even stranger, the US is providing its own subsidies to assist India’s solar sector. The US has pledged to provide
India with $4 billion to foster the growth of Indian solar power. On November 18, 2014, the two nations signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) under which the US Export-Import Bank agreed to broker up to one billion dollars in low-interest loans for
development of renewable energy sources in India. The MoU was signed two months after the WTO, acting at the behest of the US,
established a dispute settlement panel to hear the US challenge to India’s subsidies for solar power. The Ex-Im Bank is currently in
limbo, but that does not affect $2 billion in loans for Indian solar energy from the US Trade and Development Agency or a $1 billion
loan from the federal Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Now that the WTO has struck down India’s DCRs, all that money
can go to purchasing solar equipment from US corporations. So US subsidies to India serve double duty as subsidies to US
corporations. President Obama visited India in January for a summit with Prime Minister Nahendra Modi. Did the US attack on
India in the WTO produce friction between the two leaders? Not so you could tell. It was all smiles between Obama and Modi.
Enviros had hoped that the summit would result in a climate deal similar to the one Obama made with China in November 2014. In
November, the US agreed to cut its carbon emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. China pledged that its emissions would
cease to grow by 2030. The agreement is non-binding. No such deal was reached at the Indian summit. Obama
and Modi did release a peppy Joint Statement on January 27, 2015. Buried
among proposals for cooperation on
technology, trade, investment, communications, defense, and education are two paragraphs on
clean energy and climate change. India and the US agree to work together to curb emissions. Yet
unlike the China deal, no targets are set, making this no more than a feel-good assurance. In fact,
Modi has little interest in cutting carbon emissions which he regards, reasonably enough, as the responsibility of the developed
countries. India’s carbon emissions of 1.7 tons per person each year are dwarfed by the Bigfoot-sized carbon footprint of the US: 17
tons for each US citizen each year (World Bank figures for 2011). US Double Standard on Energy Subsidies The US attack on
India’s energy subsidies represents breathtaking hypocrisy. The US itself provides subsidizes for renewables.
Over the past five years, federal subsidies for renewable energy have averaged $39 billion a year. The IRS provides a 30% investment
tax credit for solar power. LCRs are part of many state and federal projects in the United States. India has called attention to LCRs
attached to renewable energy programs in Michigan, Texas, and California. Apart from renewables, water utilities in West Virginia,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and parts of New England include LCRs.

WTO is a central factor in increasing carbon emissions – causes warming

Bello, 2008 (Walden, senior analyst at the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute
Focus on the Global South and professor at the University of the Philippines, Derail Doha, Save
the Climate, July 28, http://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/07/29/derail-doha-save-
climate/ms)
There’s something surreal about the ongoing World Trade Organization talks in Geneva, which aim at coming up with a new
agreement to bring down tariffs in order to expand world trade and resuscitate global growth. In the face of the looming
specter of climate change, these negotiations amount to arguing over the arrangement of deck
chairs while the Titanic is sinking. Indeed, one of the most important steps in the struggle to come
up with a viable strategy to deal with climate change would be the derailment of the so-called
“Doha Round.” Global trade is carried out with transportation that is heavily dependent on fossil
fuels. It’s estimated that about 60% of the world’s use of oil goes to transportation activities which are more than 95% dependent
on fossil fuels. An OECD study estimated that the global transport sector accounts for 20-25% of carbon
emissions, with some 66% of this figure accounted for by emissions in the industrialized countries. Global Trade: Deeply
Dysfunctional From the point of view of environmental sustainability, global trade has
become deeply dysfunctional. Take agricultural trade. As the International Forum on Globalization has
pointed out, the average plate of food eaten in Western industrial food-importing nations is likely to
have traveled 1,500 miles from its source. Long-distance travel contributes to the absurd
situation wherein “three times more food is used to produce food in the industrial agricultural
model than is derived in consuming it.” The WTO has been a central factor in increasing
carbon emissions from transport. A study by the OECD done in the mid-nineties estimated that by 2004, the
year marking the full implementation of free-trade commitments under the WTO’s Uruguay Round, there would have been an
increase in the transport of internationally traded goods by 70% over 1992 levels. This figure, notes the New Economics Foundation,
“would make a mockery” of the Kyoto Protocol’s mandatory emissions reduction targets for the industrialized countries.
Transportation: More Fossil Intensive than Ever Ocean shipping accounts for nearly 80% of the world’s international trade in goods.
The fuel commonly used by ships is a mixture of diesel and low-quality oil known as “Bunker C,” which has high levels of carbon and
sulfur. As Jerry Mander and Simon Retallack point out, “If not consumed by ships, it would otherwise be considered a waste
product.” Aviation, which has the highest growth rate as a mode of transport, is also the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas
emissions, with its consumption of fuel expected to rise by 65% from 1990 levels by 2010, according to one study cited by the New
Economics Foundation. Other estimates are more pessimistic, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
suggesting that fuel consumption by civil aviation is going up at the rate of three percent a year
and could rise by nearly 350% from 1992 levels by 2050. Note Mander and Retallack: “Each ton of freight
moved by plane uses forty nine times as much energy per kilometer as when it’s moved by ship….A two-minute takeoff by a 747 is
equal to 2.4 million lawn mowers running for twenty minutes.” In support of trade expansion and global
economic growth, authorities have by and large not taxed aviation fuel as well as marine bunker
fuel, which now account for 20% of all emissions in the transport sector. Along with fossil-fuel-intensive
air transport, fossil-fuel-intensive road transport has also been favored by the expansion of world
trade, instead of modes with less emission intensities like rail and marine traffic. In the European Union, for instance, the focus on
building up a road transport network led an OECD study to comment that “the way in which the EU liberalization policy has been
implemented has favored the less environment-friendly modes and accelerated the decline of rail and inland waterways.”
Decoupling Growth and Energy: a Panacea There has been talk about decoupling trade and growth from
energy or shifting from fossil fuels to other, less carbon-intensive energy sources. The reality is
that the other energy sources being seriously considered are either dangerous, like nuclear
power; with deleterious side-effects, like biofuels’ negative impact on food production; or science
fiction as this stage, like carbon sequestration and storage technology. For the foreseeable future, trade expansion and
global growth will fall in line with their historical trajectory of being correlated
with increased greenhouse gas emissions. A sharp U-turn in consumption and growth in
the developed countries and a significant decrease in global trade are unavoidable if we are to
have a viable strategy against climate change. This will set the stage for a reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions, including from the energy-intensive transportation
sector. The outcome of the Doha negotiations will determine whether free trade will intensify or lose momentum. A
successful conclusion to Doha will bring us closer to uncontrollable climate change. It will
continue what the New Economics Foundation describes as “free trade’s free ride on the global
climate.” A derailment of Doha won’t be a sufficient condition to formulate a strategy to contain
climate change. But given the likely negative ecological consequences of a successful deal, it’s a
necessary condition.

Warming provisions are severely undermined by the WTO

Frankel, 08 (Jeffrey Frankel, Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard
University, October, The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements Global
Environmental Policy and Global Trade Policy/ms)
The global climate regime, as represented by the Kyoto Protocol, may be on a collision course with the
global trade policy regime, as represented by the WTO (World Trade Organization).
Environmentalists fear that international trade will undercut reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions as dirty production migrates to non-participating countries, a phenomenon known as leakage.
Meanwhile businesspeople fear the effects on their own competitiveness of the same phenomenon.
These fears have now become prominent in the policy-making process. In early 2008, legislation to
enact long-term targets for reduced emission of greenhouse gases included provisions for
possible barriers against imports from countries perceived as non-participating -- in both Washington,
DC (where the bills have not yet passed) and in Brussels (where the EU Commission Directive has gone into effect). Such
provisions could be interpreted as violations of the rules of the WTO, which poses the
nightmare scenario of a WTO panel rejecting a major country’s climate change legislation. In light
of the hostile feelings that such a scenario would unleash, it would be a nightmare for the supporters of the WTO and free trade as
much as for the supporters of the Kyoto Protocol and environmental protection.
**AFF
 SOLVES CHINA
China uses the WTO DSB as political cover to avoid escalating trade wars with the
US – this requires a credible commitment from the WTO
Bown 09
(Chad Bown is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and International
Business School at Brandeis University and a Non-Resident Fellow in the Global Economy and
Development Program at the Brookings Institution, "U.S.–China Trade Conflicts and the Future
of the WTO," the fletcher forum of world affairs, TMP)

There were many events that did nothing but add fuel to the political fire. In 2005, for example, the
Chinese firm CNOOC attempted to acquire the U.S. oil firm Unocal and was rebuffed on the grounds of national security by
Congress. The 2007 year was beset by an epidemic of product recalls and U.S. import bans related to China's exporters-due to claims
of chemicals such as melamine and diethylene glycol discovered in pet food and toothpaste, lead paint found in children's toys,
defective radial tires, and banned antibiotics applied to farmed seafood.' The first half of 2008 saw new topics seep
into U.S.-China trade tensions-including the growing financial clout of sovereign wealth funds,
the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves, and the threat that the United States would im
pose new border taxes to address failures to negotiate multilateral commitments to reduce
carbon emissions and from this laundry list of combat global climate change. 4 U The scary item to note
from this they all took place despite laundry list of U.S.-China tensions is relatively good times for the that they all took place despite
relatively good times for the U.S. economy and certainly well before the severe deepening of the financial crisis in the second half of
2008. Many expect U.S.-China trade frictions to only get worse in the face of an ongoing U.S. recession and worsening
unemployment figures.5 History provides many examples of how a bad domestic economy creates just
the right conditions for politicians to shut off imports in a misguided and desperate attempt to
save jobs. Despite the fragility of the global economy and the risks it poses to the liberal international trading system, Beijing
and Washington are unlikely to settle all of these (as well as any imminent) newly initiated U.S.-China
WTO disputes without going through the formal WTO process.6 For one, there is a tremendous
amount at stake in terms of market access, legal precedent, and politics. Second, each dispute
requires many years of legal challenges and appeals that can be used to provide beneficial
political cover to both sides. For the Obama administration, even simply continuing with the ongoing disputes that the
Bush administration initiated will help diffuse some of the protectionist threat emanating from a Congress that is politically hostile
toward China. Such a strategy could lead to tangible signs of Chinese reform "progress" that may be more difficult to negotiate in
other settings. Third, it is not clear that the two indicators of greatest political concern to the
Congress-the size of the bilateral trade deficit (still close to $250 billion for 2008) and the extent of
renminbi currency revaluation vis-ii-vis the dollar (appreciating since July 2005, but neither sufficiently quickly
nor with sign of increasing market oriented flexibility)-will see marked improvements anytime soon. Thus, Beijing
also recognizes that if it were to settle the full complement of WTO disputes early, it would likely find itself the political target of new
WTO disputes, if not something worse. Given the current economic insecurities as well as the state of
bilateral trade relations, are China, the United States, and the WTO ready for their frictions over
auto parts, film, media, and intellectual property to be at the center of formal dispute
settlement? In these WTO disputes, what starts as seemingly harmless legal maneuvering and argumentation often turns into
political battles, threats, and legally-sanctioned implementation of actual retaliation, and media-fed worries of an all-out trade war.
Successful use of the WTO's multilateral dispute settlement process to diffuse Washington Beijing bilateral tensions is far from a
foregone certainty. In order for the WTO dispute process to "work," both the United States and China
need to act and react with political savvy and have an underlying, long-term commitment to the
process and WTO system. Is China in particular sufficiently vested in the system? Is the system itself too vulnerable to hold
up in such a politically sensitive and weak economic environment? As the history of formal dispute settlement reveals, a fully
successful resolution to these and future disputes that the United States and China file against
each other will involve dealing with some foreseeable, as well as many unforeseeable, pitfalls.7
The particular attraction to WTO dispute settlement is the potential for these legal disputes to not
only diffuse political tension but also for their resolution to bring a "win-win" economic outcome
to both sides market access gains to U.S. exporters and reforms that enhance Chinas economic
growth. Nevertheless, success is by no means a certainty, especially in the current international climate of such economic and
political volatility. Missteps by either side through careless mismanagement of the politics of the
dispute resolution process could lead to stalemates and both sides becoming disenfranchised
with the current rules-based trading system. Such an outcome would have serious consequences, as the WTO
system needs both the United States and China to be confident and invested in the future of the institution. are in for some U.S.-
China The bottom line is that we are fireworks. in for some U.S.-China fireworks emanating from Geneva over the near term. There
is value to a guide for what to expect along the way.

A credible WTO DSB is crucial to manage U.S.-China relations and offers the CCP
political cover necessary for political stability
Castel-Fodor 13
(Kennan J. Castel-Fodor, J.D. is a candidate at Case Western Reserve University School of Law,
CASE WESTERN RESERVE LAW REVIEW, “Providing a Release Valve: The U.S.-China
Experience with the WTO Dispute Settlement System,” TMP)
The Sino-American relationship remains a salient political issue within the United States, with
the People’s Republic often vilified. A number of subjects tend to ignite the ire of the American public
and Congress, including human rights, currency manipulation, and trade frictions. The U.S. administration’s
engagement of China through DSB litigation conveys a strong political stance in instances of perceived
violations of China’s international obligations. This litigation strategy toward China helps to placate the
American public’s anger as well as the calls for tougher legislation from Congress.
The saber rattling from Congress can prove potentially catastrophic for U.S.-Chinese
relations as protectionist trade legislation can spark damaging retaliatory policies from China. The U.S.
administration can use WTO litigation to address issues preemptively before protectionist elements in
Congress can act. For the American government, WTO litigation provides a unique ability to diffuse
political tensions that could have deleterious ramifications for the long-term benefit of the
Sino-American relationship. While the Chinese government is not subject to the same democratic undulations,
domestic pressure within China is of great concern to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political
stability. Economic concerns are always at the forefront of the CCP’s domestic and foreign policy, as demonstrated through the
maintenance of the currency policy that has caused much contention. Sometimes, China’s initiation of WTO litigation
is the direct result of domestic concerns toward particularly prominent trading partners. Like the
United States, the Chinese government can utilize DSB determinations to implement or speed up
reforms that may not be particularly popular domestically. This is particularly true in situations in
China where reform, without DSB determinations, would be untenable. The prospect of WTO litigation and
the permeation of DSB norms throughout China can provide the CCP domestic credibility for instituting
reformist policies. Increasing WTO litigation and improving Chinese legal savvy can also provide the indirect benefit of
bolstering the Chinese public’s faith in not only the WTO and DSB but also other international organizations. This provides the CCP
with a stronger trade dispute mechanism that would have more support from the Chinese domestic populace. A dedication to
resolving trade disputes through the DSB provides the governments in Beijing and Washington
both clout and political protection. Given the complex political landscape, using the DSB allows both the
United States and China to vent domestic frustrations through an international legal forum. The use of
the DSB as a third-party intermediary allows both governments to deflect losses while still
resolving tense political frictions. The DSB allows the United States and the People’s Republic to diffuse political
tensions that can arise within a domestic market, especially with the public, media, and political figures.
 SOLVES ENVIRONMENT
Credible DSB solves the environment
Brockova1 16,
(Katarína Brockoval studied both international economic relations and diplomacy at the
Bratislava University of Economics School of Commerce, “
MULTILATERAL TRADE RULES AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION”, via ProQuest,
TMP)

Conclusion. The main aim of the World Trade Organization is the facilitation of
progressive trade liberalization. However, over the past 20 years, it has become evident
that tensions may arise between international trade on the one hand, and, public health and
environmental concerns, on the other, especially when WTO members introduce trade
restrictions to protect environmental interests. In this respect, it had been established by
the WTO’s Appellate Body on numerous occasions that, funda- mentally, the WTO Members
have the right to determine the level of protection they consider appropriate in a given context.
However, in order to meet the strict criteria for WTO-consistent application of exceptional
trade restrictive measures in order to protect legitimate environmental interests of WTO
members, these measures need to be necessary and effective with respect to
achieving the proclaimed policy objective and there must be no alternative less trade-
restrictive measure available. In this con- text, it is important to note that it is in the discretion
of the WTO Appellate Body whether to apply qualitative or quantitative analysis for the
examination of measures effectiveness. In our opinion, this approach results in quite a
large space for the WTO dispute settlement body to apply different criteria and
methods for the evaluation of the necessity of the measure at stake in view of
achieving the proclaimed objective in va- rious disputes. Thus, the absence of a
standardized method for examination of the effectiveness of such measure makes it nearly
impossible to make reasonable conclu- sions on the consistency of the Appellate Body’s
decisions in some disputes. This may potentially lead to diminished predictability of the
outcomes of future environmental disputes brought to the WTO. On the other hand, our
analysis shows that the WTO’s Appellate Body is quite consistent and strict in
safeguarding the non-discriminatory application of trade- restrictive measures
provisionally justified under the general exceptions clause of the GATT 1994. Lastly,
the China-Raw Materials dispute analysed above shows that the Appellate Body is keen on
limiting the access to general exceptions under GATT 1994 for WTO members which have
negotiated elaborate accession protocols, where numerous exceptions from the WTO rules have
been granted to them under the spe- cial and differential treatment principle applicable to
developing countries.
 TURNS INEVITABLE
Their turns are inev – means we outweigh on timeframe
Baldwin 08
(Richard Edward Baldwin is Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute,
Geneva since 1991, a part-time visiting research professor at the University of Oxford since 2012,
Policy Director of CEPR since 2006, and Editor-in-Chief of Vox since he founded it in June
2007, Vox, July 1, 2008, “The WTO tipping point”, http://www.voxeu.org/article/wto-tipping-
point, TMP)

To date, these changes seem more like challenges than threats. The key players believe the world
trade system will continue to be anchored by the WTO’s shared values, such as reciprocity,
transparency, non-discrimination, and the rule of law. WTO-anchorage allows each member to view its own
policies as minor derogations. Yet, at some point derogations become the new norm . The steady erosion of
the WTO’s centricity will sooner or later bring the world to a tipping point – a point beyond which
expectations become unmoored and nations feel justified in ignoring WTO norms since everyone
else does. A polycentric trading system? No one knows what happens beyond the tipping point. My guess is that trade would
continue to grow and the system would continue to function – but not equally well for all nations. Before
the GATT was set up in 1947, the Great Powers settled trade disputes by gunboats or diplomats
depending upon the parties involved. Only the naïve thought market access should be reciprocal or
fair. A return to this “Belle Époque” extreme is unlikely, but a new Great Powers trade system is likely to emerge.
Its core will be the US and EU networks of bilateral trade deals. Domestic special-interest groups, newly freed from
WTO constraints, would push the EU and US templates in divergent directions. Regional
arrangements of the new trade powers and Russia could diverge even more markedly, since WTO norms
have never fully been internalised by their domestic special-interest groups. This would be a world of “spheres of
influence” and bare-knuckle bargaining. All would lose in this post-tipping point world but not equally.
The United States, European Union, Japan, China, and India have enough market leverage to defend
their interests. Small nation would suffer much more as they benefit the most from the WTO’s
consensus-based rules and negotiations. Worse yet, moving towards a might-makes-right trade
system would be extremely corrosive to global cooperation on the new century’s greatest governance
challenges – climate change, pandemics, water scarcity, and the Millennium Development Goals.
 WTO KEY TO TRADE
Even if uneven, WTO membership enhances trade exponentially
Subramanian* and Wei** 6
(Arvind* and Shang-Jin**, Jan 12, Indian economist and the current Chief Economic Adviser to
the Government of India*, N. T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and
Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School.**
https://piie.com/publications/papers/subramanian0106.pdf)//cb
IV.4 Industrial country effect or WTO effect? One of our main and robust findings is that industrial country
WTO membership is associated with greater trade. In most years in our sample, however, all industrial countries
are GATT/WTO members. How can we be sure that we are picking up a WTO effect rather than an
industrial country effect? 23 In response we would make a number of points. First, insofar as industrial
countries have several distinguishing characteristics collectively and individually we control for them
respectively through our time-varying importer and exporter fixed effects. In other words, the results on the
WTO dummy do not follow simply because they are richer or larger than other countries or in some ways geographically or
historically distinctive. Nevertheless, it is still possible that there are residual characteristics of industrial countries that are
unobservable and therefore omitted from our set of regressors, biasing our results. Second, we also obtain and report
some more direct evidence in favor of a WTO rather than an industrial country effect. A number of
industrial countries were not contracting parties to the GATT at the beginning of our sample (The
exact years of accession for the individual countries are listed in Appendix Table 2). We run panel and annual cross-section
regressions for these years and, in addition to the usual industrial country GATT/WTO variable, add an industrial country
GATT/WTO non-member variable. The results are reported in Table 12.24 The panel regression (column 1) shows that while both
industrial country GATT/WTO member and industrial country non-member coefficients are positive and significant, the two are
significantly different from each other.25 The difference in the values of the coefficients suggests that an
industrial country GATT/WTO member importing 200 percent more than an
industrial country non-member.26 The year-by-year results (columns 2-5) also confirm, in all 4 time periods, that
industrial country GATT/WTO members imported significantly more, economically and
statistically, than industrial counties that were not GATT/WTO members. V. SUMMARY AND
CONCLUDING REMARKS Rose (2004a) has seriously called into question the effectiveness and hence the
usefulness of the GATT/WTO as a multilateral institution. His analysis implies that the GATT/WTO, whose raison d’être is
to promote trade, has failed to do so. Our paper shows, however, that the GATT/WTO has done a
splendid job of promoting trade. The GATT/WTO has served to increase world imports
substantially, possibly by about 120 percent of world trade (about US$8 trillion in 2000 alone). But this
trade promoting role of the GATT/WTO has been uneven. This unevenness is related to four asymmetries in the system, most of
which can be rationalized by the recent economic theory of the GATT/WTO. Our empirical investigation has found evidence
consistent with these asymmetries.

WTO is key to trade – best new analysis proves, also necessary to ensure RTA’s are
effective – Rose doesn’t assume 2008
Elsig et al 16,
(Manfred Elsig is Professor of International Relations and Deputy Managing Director of the
World Trade Institute of the University of Bern, His research focuses primarily on the politics of
international trade, regional trade agreements, European trade policy, international
organizations, US–EU relations, and private actors in global politics, Bernard M. Hoekman is
Research Manager of the International Trade team in the Development Research Group of the
World Bank, Washington, DC, Joost Pauwelyn is Professor of International Law at the Graduate
Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, “Thinking about the
performance of the World Trade Organization: A discussion across disciplines”,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2732639, TMP)
II. Goals and performance of the WTO: Three metrics 1. Reducing trade barriers and
agreeing to new policy disciplines The basic stylized fact here is well-known: to date the
WTO’s performance in delivering new policy commitments has been very weak. This does not
require economic analysis, of course, in that no new market access agreements were negotiated
between 1995 and 2015. The Doha Development Agenda has been moribund since 2008 and the
large players that historically have been the mainstays of multilateral trade cooperation (US and
EU) have shifted their main focus to the conclusion of so-called mega-regional agreements
(TPP, TTIP). Indeed, there has been a general shift towards preferential trade agreements
(PTAs): some 400 PTAs have been notified to the WTO in the last 20 years. Much of the
liberalization that has occurred since 1995 has been associated with either unilateral reforms or
the implementation of PTAs. An interesting question is to what extent this is consistent with the
‘macro’ goal of reducing barriers to trade. Given that average levels of protection have continued
to fall throughout the post- 1995 period, and that the WTO explicitly allows for members to
negotiate PTAs, it is not as clear as is often argued that the WTO has failed to deliver. It has not
proved possible to conclude the Doha Round and agree to new rules in areas such as agricultural
subsidies, but at the same time governments have signed numerous preferential trade
agreements and reduced average levels of protection. Moreover, it should be
recognized that in key areas that economic research suggests will deliver large
gains for developing countries – most notably trade facilitation (where estimated potential
gains exceed what was proposed in Doha for reducing tariffs—e.g., Hoekman and Nicita, 2011) –
WTO members did conclude an agreement. 2. Managing political economy pressures
and preventing backsliding Does the WTO improve national trade policy processes and
outcomes? Here the answer is largely positive, although there is no consensus. At the national
level there is evidence of a positive effect of the WTO on the ‘quality’ of trade policy.
In part this is reflected in the fact that although numerous, the number of disputes are
much less than what would be predicted based on the number of bilateral interactions between
countries (Horn et al, 1999; Sattler and Bernauer, 2011). In part this has been demonstrated
by case studies of specific countries. Examples include the work of Mike Finger and coauthors
(Bacarat et al. 2013; Finger and Nogues, 2006) showing how WTO disciplines can be and have
been used to manage and deflect pressures for protection by powerful interest groups. One
measure of performance on this front is what happened (did not happen) following
the 2008 financial crisis in the US and the EU. In contrast to the late 1970s and early
1980s, the closest recent analogue where a major shock (OPEC price rise) sent the global
economy into a tailspin, when governments imposed a plethora of trade restrictions, including
quotas and ‘voluntary’ export restrictions, there was not a significant rise in average
levels of protection post-2008.6 For example, Gawande, Hoekman and Cui (2015) find that
WTO disciplines were a factor, although they also point to changes in the incentives to use
trade policy: once countries are highly integrated into international production
networks they will not benefit from trade protection. But insofar as the rise of
global value chains was a factor in restraining protectionism, to a significant
extent this in itself can also be attributed to the WTO: the open, rules-based
multilateral trading system underpinned the shift by companies towards greater
specialization, cross-border investment and international production networks. Another
measure of the performance of the WTO in this area is the absence of a large scale
increase in disputes alleging violations of WTO commitments post-2008 crisis (see
also Section E below). As discussed subsequently, one of the ‘micro’ functions that played a
supporting role in this regard are the WTO’s various transparency mechanisms. 3. Trade effects
of the WTO As noted previously, one measure of the attainment of both of the broad macro
goals of the WTO that are distinguished in the economics literature is whether the WTO has an
effect on countries’ trade patterns and performance. The most straightforward measure is
whether the WTO overall or membership of a country in the WTO increases trade
volumes and the structure of trade (lower barriers and less uncertainty should increase
investment in tradables and allow exploitation of comparative advantages that will be reflected
in changes in specialization). The best evidence from a statistical perspective – in terms of
identifying a ‘WTO effect’ – comes from studies of the effects of WTO accession.
Countries that acceded to the WTO after 1995 differ from ‘original’ WTO members in that they
were forced to go through a rigorous and demanding process of review and scrutiny, and were
required to do much more to bolster and reform trade policy institutions than GATT
incumbents. Rose (2005); Subramanian and Wei (2007) and Tang and Wei (2009) find
a positive trade impact for countries that joined the WTO after 1995. Tang and Wei
(2009) attribute this positive effect to improved economic governance and argue that WTO
accession acts as a partial cure for weaknesses in the investment climate in many
acceding countries. The mechanisms that are at play here span various elements of
the WTO, including greater policy certainty associated with bindings and transparency.
Reducing uncertainty is an important dimension of the WTO and trade
agreements more generally (see, Francois, 1997; Francois and Martin 2004; Handley 2014
and Limão and Tovar 2011). There has been debate in the economics literature whether positive
trade effects apply more generally. Rose (2004), most notably, undertook a gravity model
analysis of the determinants of bilateral trade flows of GATT/WTO members for a 50 year
period and failed to find a distinct impact associated with GATT/WTO membership. However,
Subramanian and Wei (2007) find that the WTO does increase trade – by some 40
percent on average – but only for those countries that participated in the process
of reciprocal exchange of trade policy commitments. They do not find such a positive
trade effect for most developing country members of the GATT, which they attribute to the
pursuit of special and differential treatment which implied that most of these countries did not
make changes to their trade regimes. Similarly accounting for this selection bias, Liu (2009)
and Dutt et al. (2013) find a strong role for the WTO in increasing the extensive
margin of trade; the latter conclude that WTO membership increases the extensive margin by
30 to 40 percent. Another example of a WTO agreement that should allow for clear
identification of impacts is the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA). This
applies to only a subset of countries, thus permitting comparisons between signatories and non-
signatories. Research finds no effects on the import behavior of participating governments.
Shingal (2015) analyzes procurement sourcing over time in Japan and Switzerland, and finds
that GPA membership has no independent effect. Shingal (2011) concludes that the share of
services contracts awarded to foreigners declined over time for these two countries, as opposed
to rising. Rickard and Kono (2013) assess the effects of the GPA and 43 PTAs that include
procurement, and conclude the agreements have no impact on foreign sourcing. However, here
again there may be country-specificity at work. Fronk (2014), focusing only on agreements
negotiated by the US finds a statistically significant positive effect of bilateral
procurement agreements on procurement behavior. Thus, while the WTO overall has
had the expected positive trade impact, this is not the case across the board. The determinants
of the performance of the WTO in achieving the broad ‘macro’ goals that are the focus of
economics research are varied. External events – not just events such as the 2008
crisis/recession or the 1998 East Asian financial meltdown but also major structural changes
such as the rapid growth sustained by China that led to a major rebalancing of the world
economy – clearly are a factor, as are decisions by WTO members whether and how
to employ outside options to pursue the macro goals. The intensity with which WTO
members have used PTAs increased in the WTO’s first 20 years and it is likely that this trend
will continue. It is important to consider that the WTO makes explicit provisions for
the negotiation of PTAs between its members. The WTO membership has a choice
where and how to pursue trade cooperation. The revealed preference has been to pursue
parallel tracks: the Doha negotiations and plurilateral initiatives as well as PTAs. Has a
proliferation of PTAs led to significant trade diversion and negative spillovers for non-
members? While the jury is still out on this question, empirical economic research suggests that
PTAs have not had anywhere near the negative effects they might have had and that on balance
they have been associated with a general trend of greater openness to trade globally.7 PTAs do
not address many of the core issues that are of concern to the majority of the WTO membership
and that are on the table in the DDA – most notably trade-distorting agricultural policies and
subsidies. They are not a substitute for a comprehensive multilateral agreement that goes
beyond what was negotiated in the 1990s (the Uruguay Round). An internal factor that many
argue plays a role in the limited achievements in new rule-making in the WTO is how the
negotiating agenda is determined and limited scope to adjust this over time. Numerous
economic analyses suggest that the ‘landing zone’ associated with the DDA is both small and
perhaps more important, that the distribution of associated economic benefits and losses is
quite asymmetric (Decreux and Fontagné, 2015; Laborde and Martin, 2015; Martin and
Messerlin, 2007). These are issues where there is substantial scope to apply both quantitative
modeling and analysis used in other parts of economics (e.g., the theory of clubs and
fiscal federalism), as well as a clear need for multi-disciplinary research strategies to identify
areas of complementarity between PTAs, small group cooperation in the WTO, and
universal membership agreements. A function of the WTO that has played an
important role in sustaining cooperation – preventing backsliding; avoiding
disputes – are the various transparency mechanisms. This played a positive role in the
post-2008 period in raising external visibility of national trade policy measures and signaling
that actions of governments would be scrutinized. Of course, determining to what extent this led
to fewer action being taken is difficult to determine – there is no clear counterfactual. This is one
subject where there is a need for multi-disciplinary analysis, e.g., detailed case studies of
deliberation within governments and in parliaments. The same is true for assessments of the
role that WTO commitments and disciplines play in the way that governments respond to
pressures from domestic constituencies for economic assistance. WTO rules, processes and
interactions are just one mechanism through which government policy is affected.
The economic research on the trade and growth effects of the WTO demonstrates that these
effects may be indirect as well as direct. The indirect channel may well be more
important, but difficult to identify. Thus, engagement in the WTO may help to stimulate a
focus on improving the business environment and investment climate more generally. The need
to develop a capacity to implement agreements and to participate in dispute settlement may
have spillover effects in other areas – e.g., the negotiation of investment agreements, or a
reconsideration of approaches towards non-trade economic regulation. The WTO cooperates
and interacts more closely with a large number of international agencies and organizations than
the GATT did. An example is the work on ‘aid for trade’ which has brought the WTO into the
ambit of the development community and raised awareness of trade capacity needs in the
development world. This may well have had significant payoffs in attaining ‘macro’
goals. Documenting what should be attributed to the operation of the WTO is a difficult
challenge.
 AT: RTA
Regionalism ALONE fails – strong WTO is a necessary foundation – RTA’s risk
conflict
Low 14
(Patrick Low is the vice president for Research at the Fung Global Institute in Hong Kong,
“Preferentialism in Trade Relations: Challenges for the World Trade Organization”, May 2014,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2434993, TMP)
This paper argues that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are not substitutes, and
dispensing with a multilateral venue
while PTAs are without doubt here to stay, is not a serious option for doing business in trade matters .
It is therefore necessary to seek out better accommodation between PTAs and the WTO than has been apparent to date. The law of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/WTO has systematically fallen
short in imposing discipline on discriminatory reciprocal trade agreements, while procedural requirements, such as notifications, have been partially observed at best, and dispute settlement findings have tended
to reinforce existing weaknesses in the disciplines. One approach to remedying this situation is to explore a different kind of cooperation—that of soft law. A soft law approach to improving coherence and compatibility
between the WTO and PTAs may hold some promise, but the option also has its pitfalls. Preferentialism in trade policy has exploded in the last 15 years and it is not going to disappear. Views differ as to whether
and to what extent this creates problems for international trade governance, be it from an economic, political, or institutional perspective. Part of the vast literature on this subject has focused on the relationship
between preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and the multilateral trading system. A key preoccupation is whether regionalism and multilateralism can coexist in a mutually supportive fashion, or whether burgeoning
regionalism is in the process of undermining a global approach to trade relations. If the latter is the case—and many hold this to be so—an obvious supplementary question is whether it matters. The premise of this

paper is thatthe World Trade Organization (WTO) uniquely provides political and economic “public goods”, and this argues strongly
for finding ways of ensuring complementarity between the two avenues for shaping international trade relations. This is a non-contentious starting point, since it would be hard to find

a serious analysis arguing that the disappearance or functional castration of the multilateral trading system
would enhance world welfare or constitute an improvement in global governance. Yet the WTO has signally failed to
regulate regionalism in a systematic manner, thus relegating this over-arching multilateral trade institution to what, in the face of runaway regionalism, Baldwin (2006) referred to as the role of an innocent bystander.
If regionalism is here to stay and the WTO is being sidelined, an obvious question is what the WTO should do about it. This is the subject of the present paper. Three points may usefully be made at the outset. First,
at the risk of stating the obvious, the WTO is not an exogenous entity of ill-defined provenance, but rather a construct of governments seeking to cooperate in trade matters. It is what the collective decisions of

the central issue is how governments decide to balance their interests in

governments make it. Since this is true of PTAs as well,

different institutional venues. Secondly, among the more than 300 PTAs currently in force and the dozens still under
negotiation, one encounters a huge variety of agreements in terms of policy coverage and design. Some embrace deep integration, going considerably beyond
WTO rights and obligations, while others are partial, poorly conceived and of dubious economic or lasting political value.1 These differences are not directly relevant to this paper, as it focuses upon rules and
institutional arrangements in the WTO and not individual PTAs. Third, in considering how the relationship between PTAs and the WTO might evolve and be managed, no analysis is offered of the bigger question of

multilateralism should
what the future shape and role of the WTO might be in international governance arrangements. For present purposes, the sufficient argument is that

be preserved and that therefore a better relationship needs to be defined between PTAs
and the WTO. The paper is organized into five more sections. The next section briefly reviews some similarities and differences between PTAs and the WTO. This discussion is intended to
emphasize that: i) PTAs and the WTO are not substitutes ; ii) dispensing with a multilateral venue for doing business in trade matters is not a serious option; and iii) it
therefore becomes necessary to seek out a better accommodation between PTAs and the WTO than has been apparent to date. Section 3 examines the content and nature of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT)/WTO attempts to regulate PTAs. It discusses the difficulties associated with the content and interpretation of the relevant GATT/WTO rules and some aspects of the intellectual debate about how far PTAs
should be answerable to multilateral disciplines. This sets the scene for an analysis in Section 4 of alternative ways of addressing the PTA/WTO relationship. This section also introduces the notion of “soft law”,
which is discussed in Section 5. The paper argues that properly defined, an augmentation of soft law in the WTO’s approach could contribute to a strengthened and more coherent set of international trade
arrangements, as well as help to redefine the “hard law” aspects of the WTO’s responsibilities. Section 6 concludes. A paper of this nature cannot begin to do justice to the rich literature that compares multilateralism
and regionalism on a variety of economic, political, and institutional dimensions. 2 Much of the economic analysis demonstrating that the welfare consequences of PTAs are ambiguous is based on the Vinerian
concepts of trade creation and trade diversion. Some analyses seek to identify the most probable circumstances in which trade creation will trump trade diversion, while many empirical papers have estimated the
relative impact of the two effects. The Kemp-Wan formulation is a static specification of the circumstances where preferential liberalization is unambiguously welfare-enhancing globally. It requires that preferential

no ex ante determination can be

partners go to free trade and no trade diversion occurs (Kemp and Wann 1976). The main conclusion from this literature, however, is that

made of the welfare consequences of PTAs. What about a world in which the most-favored-nation (MFN) principle applies, in the style of the WTO? MFN trade
would create conditions in which traders were able to do business with the most efficient partners at tariff-inclusive prices. But MFN trade is not free trade, and the theory of the
second best tells us that discriminatory initiatives in an already distorted environment might yield superior welfare outcomes to the status quo when MFN liberalization is unattainable (Horn and Mavroidis 2001;

when the interplay between economic and political motives in the

Schwartz and Sykes 1998). Ornelas (2008) constructs a model to show that

Grossman-Helpman sense is taken into account (Grossman and Helpman 1994), free trade cannot be attained because of the political motivations of
governments. The argument is that in an MFN world that does not deliver complete liberalization as a result of mixed government motives in
setting policy, PTAs might be able to deliver a superior welfare outcome to an MFN regime. The main driving force behind this result depends on the notion of tariff complementarity, where tariffs against third
parties fall when countries enter into preferential arrangements. A recent empirical paper by Estevadeordal, Freund and Ornelas (2008) backs up this theoretical finding, the practical implication of which seems to

a study by Limao (2007) found that where regional

be that preferential trading partners have an interest in mitigating trade diversion. On the other hand,

deals have been done, MFN liberalization has lagged behind. A possible explanation for these contradictory results is that the
reluctance to liberalize on an MFN basis following regional trade-opening arises because the liberalization has been exchanged for nontrade benefits. The Ornelas paper does not argue, however, that discriminatory
liberalization cannot hurt third parties—merely that global welfare might improve to a greater extent in some circumstances than under MFN liberalization. Much of the economic analysis is carried out in terms of
tariffs. An important question is whether the same reasoning remains valid when non-tariff or regulatory policies are involved. It would seem that to the extent regulations can reasonably be characterized in terms
of tariff equivalents, the same logic applies. In a world where deteriorated trade opportunities result from divergent and incompatible regulatory regimes, an estimation of the tariff equivalence of measures will not
tell us what we need to know. Combining economic and non-economic objectives in an analysis of the economic merits of preferential trade complicates the picture somewhat. The broad conclusion is that the case
for an MFN-based regime cannot be made unequivocally on pure economic efficiency or welfare grounds. Nevertheless, a growing body of literature has in the last few years examined preferential trade arrangements
in terms of the incidence of trade costs. A good example of this is Baldwin’s work on multilateralizing regionalism (Baldwin 2006).3 In somewhat simplified terms, what Baldwin argues is that a “juggernaut” effect
and a “domino” effect operate over time in the world economy. The juggernaut effect embodies the idea that liberalization begets liberalization through a repositioning of domestic interest groups as continuing
liberalization shrinks the size and influence of the groups that oppose market opening. The domino effect arises as regional agreements stimulate further regional agreements because of the competitive implications
of discriminatory preferences. When these forces are part of a world economy where production sharing and process fragmentation across frontiers are becoming more frequent, and nationally-based interests are
becoming internationalized, constituencies against the prevalence of markets segmented by PTAs become stronger. This is largely a trade cost story, where rules of origin and other transaction costs associated with
crossing trade policy jurisdictions become sufficiently irksome for producer interests to press governments to multilateralize the liberalization they have accumulated preferentially in PTAs. This process of
rationalization is good for efficiency and over time will have the effect of resurrecting a multilateral vision of trade cooperation, which offers the attainment of greater economic efficiency than the alternative. Some
literature has focused specifically on motivations driving PTA formation that cannot easily be captured in formal welfare-analytic models (see Fernandez and Portes [1998], for example). The report of the first
Warwick Commission (Warwick Commission 2007) enumerated several reasons why governments might become involved in PTAs. These include the enlargement of a trading entity to increase bargaining power
with third parties, to counter slow multilateral processes, to go further and deeper in the exchange of policy commitments, to secure foreign policy (political) objectives, to lock in domestic reforms, to insure against
future policy instability, and to avoid exclusion in a world of many PTAs. Turning to non-economic reasons why a multilateral approach may be preferred, or at least why maintaining a multilateral system of trade
governance is regarded as desirable, several factors have been identified. They are largely non-quantifiable and have to do with notions of inclusiveness, peace, and security. The WTO World Trade Report 2007
(WTO 2007), for example, argues that experiences in the first and second half of the 20th century are a study in contrast between a world without a system of global governance and one that developed international
institutions for cooperation. The first 50 years were punctuated by two world wars, a trade war, and generalized bouts of acute economic hardship. The post-World War II architects of international cooperation
learned from these experiences and were determined to craft a system of international governance that entailed pre-commitment on policy behavior, imparted greater certainty and security in international relations,
and fostered a sense of shared purpose in maintaining political and economic harmony. The post-war political and economic institutions are under strain today in a very different world from the one in which they

were constructed, and this has engendered pressure for reform. But reform is one thing and institutional destruction is another. The idea that global institutions are
necessary in an interdependent world supports a multilateral dimension to trade relations. To sum up, it is apparent that
economic welfare analysis does not offer unambiguous guidance for preferring non-
discriminatory over discriminatory trade policy. But even if one were able to specify
circumstances where multilateralism did better on these grounds, this would not eliminate motivations for PTAs that can
define cooperation in ways beyond the reach of a non-discriminatory regime. By the same token, the
multilateral trading system delivers benefits of both an economic and non-economic nature
that are missing in a PTA framework. Insofar as these two approaches to trade cooperation are not perfect substitutes, the case is strong for finding ways of strengthening
the ability of the WTO to influence and discipline PTAs, or at least to blunt their more exclusive and distorting features.

WTO is necessary to maintain effective RTA’s – their research method is flawed

and ignores the heterogenic nature of TA’s
Kohl et al 15,
(Dr. Tristan Kohl is a professor at University of Groningen, Dr. Steven Brakman is a professor of
International Economics, University of Groningen, Dr. Harry Garretsen is also a professor of
International Economics at University of Groningen, “Do Trade Agreements Stimulate
International Trade Differently? Evidence from 296 Trade Agreements”, accessed via Wiley,
TMP)
The seminal article of Rose (2004) revived interest in the effects of trade institutions on
international trade. A key characteristic of this literature is the overly simplistic way
in which trade agreements are treated, as a binary dummy variable. However, trade
agreements come in many different forms and shapes. This study addresses this
heterogeneity in trade agreements. Using a database of 296 agreements, we distinguish 13
policy domains that are within the present scope of the WTO's mandate (i.e. WTO+
provisions) and four policy domains that are not (i.e. WTOX provisions). Furthermore, the
possibility that these undertakings may or may not be legally enforceable is accounted for. We
show that the degree to which governments negotiate comprehensive trade agreements is
positively related to their level of economic development. Moreover, the number of
WTO members in a TA and its comprehensiveness are positively associated. This is
because many provisions contained in trade agreements generally build on existing WTO
policies. Strikingly, our empirical findings suggest that WTO members use TAs not to
undermine or circumvent the WTO, but rather to build on the trade-promoting, non-
discriminatory policies embedded in the multilateral system – even when not all
TA participants are WTO members. Our extensive taxonomy of trade agreements
enables us to shed some light on whether trade agreement heterogeneity affects
international trade differently. Using a gravity model, we find that trade agreement
heterogeneity indeed matters in order to grasp the impact of TAs on international trade. The
‘all provisions are equal’ approach in the literature is therefore only of limited use.
Distinguishing between various types of provisions confirms that they have different effects on
international trade. Standard trade provisions that are part of the WTO's mandate (WTO+
policies) are found to be trade promoting, whereas more modern provisions that
are beyond the scope of the WTO are not. We also find that trade agreements’
effectiveness in promoting trade crucially depends on whether the provisions covered in a
TA are actually legally enforceable. The overall conclusion is thus that trade agreement
heterogeneity matters for international trade.
 AT: RTA SOLVES POVERTY
Regionalism expands rich-poor gap
Cho 6 (Sungjoon, SJD @ Harvard Law, LLM – International Economic Law @ Michigan Law,
MPA – Seoul National University, LLB – Seoul National University, Professor of International
Economic Law @ IIT Chicago-Kent, consultant to the South Korean government's Ministry of
Trade, Industry, and Energy, and former WTO negotiatior for South Korea, “Defragmenting
World Trade” Fall, 2006, 27 NW. J. INT'L L. & BUS. 39, TMP)

3. Development Failure
The proliferation of RTAs aggravates the developmental disparity of trading nations, including
uneven distribution of benefits from free trade. In general, large regional blocs, such as the European Union, may
increase their internal welfare, but impoverish smaller non-members and widen the [*71]
gap between rich and poor countries. n169 According to Ben Zissimos and David Vines, bloc expansion creates a "terms of trade" gain for
the bloc members at the expense of non-members, especially smaller ones. n170 In other words, while members of large blocs can enhance

their economic welfare through a deeper internal integration and resultant economies of scale, smaller non-
member economies' exports to these blocs are continuously threatened by these
artificial terms-of-trade gains by large blocs. Additionally, small, poor trading nations may still
suffer even as members of RTAs with large, rich nations. The "hub and spoke" model provides a
powerful tool with which to analyze development failure of North-South RTAs. A hub (a
large, rich country) can enjoy free access to the spokes' (small, poor countries') markets to the benefit of its export
industries, while at the same time benefiting its import industries by providing access to the spokes' cheap

raw materials. n171 However, the spokes cannot benefit in the same way, unless they
form a web of RTAs (a "rim") amongst themselves. n172 Even if the spokes can experience an initial
improvement in market access to the hub, such benefits tend to evaporate when multilateral trade liberalization
subsequently lowers trade barriers. n173 Also, the spokes, not the hub, suffer most welfare loss due to
the exclusion of important sectors, such as agriculture , from the North-South RTAs. n174 Alvin Hilaire and
Yongzheng Yang demonstrated that the exclusion of agricultural liberalization from the U.S.-Chile FTA resulted in substantial welfare loss to Chile, with no major negative impact
on the United States. n175 Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, Richard Newfarmer, and Martha Denisse Pierola confirmed through an economic
model the existence of this developmentally pernicious effect of the recent trend of bilateral deals between North and
South. n176 Using the Global Trade Analysis Project database, they performed a simulation based on a hypothesis that all
[*72] developing countries would sign bilateral trade agreements with rich countries, such as the United States,

the European Union, Japan, and Canada. n177 The result was truly revealing. While multilateral trade liberalization would bring

developing countries a gain of 109 billion dollars in 2015, bilateral deals with rich countries would
cause them a loss of twenty-two billion dollars in the same year. n178 Moreover, such loss would be concentrated disproportionately on low
income countries (nineteen billion dollars) over middle income countries (2.6 billion dollars). n179 More seriously, however, parties to hub-and-spoke FTAs are

vulnerable to exploitation due to an inherent power disparity between parties. n180

Jagdish Bhagwati once criticized the "FTA-cum-301 selfish hegemon strategy" of the United States, which positions the

United States as a hub that extracts far superior terms from its bilateral FTA spokes . n181 This selfish
hegemony is engineered by the aggressive unilateralism embedded in Section 301, n182 which was enacted to remedy allegedly unfair trade practices adopted by foreign countries
and thus protect commercial interests of domestic producers. n183 Leftist development theorists might agree with Bhagwati's criticism. The "dependency theory" casts a gloomy
It contends that a "center"
vision over free trade initiatives, such as FTAs. n184 (powerful country)exploits "peripheries" (less powerful
trading partners). n185 It was in this context that the World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in January 2005 sounded a warning of immiserizing effects of these North-
South RTAs. Some participants, including the Africa Trade Network ("ATN"), argued that the ongoing "Economic Partnership Agreement ("EPA")" negotiations between the
European Union and African, Pacific, and Caribbean countries demand far deeper concessions from the poor than would otherwise be required under the WTO. n186 The [*73]
ATN used the World Social Forum to advance the "Stop EPA Campaign," which it operates along with other non-governmental organizations ("NGOs") including Oxfam
International, Action Aid, and the Third World Network. n187
 AT: RTA SOLVES TRADE
Excessive regionalism causes trade wars and diverts economic flows – multilateral
foundation key
Neumann 9 (Ildiko Virag-Neumann, lecturer of Applied Economics at the University of
Pannonia, Hungary, “Regional Trade Agreements and the WTO”, 2009, http://kgk.uni-
obuda.hu/system/files/32_Neumann-Virag.pdf, TMP)

International economic order is rapidly changing. Until the early 1990s, multilateralism was dominant and regional remained
marginal. Today, however, regionalism is well acknowledged as one of the two pillars of international economic order, together with
multilateralism. It will be thus important to explore the harmony between regionalism and multilateralism .The question is whether
regionalism may be a faster way to reach multilateralism or, rather, hurt multilateral liberalization. Are regional integration
arrangements “building blocks, or stumbling blocks,” in Jagdish Bhagwati’s phrase [17], or stepping stones toward multilateralism?
Since the end of the Uruguay Round, the world trading system has experienced the emergence of a large
group of regional blocs. Ranging from the NAFTA and the Mercosur to the APEC and the enlargements of the EU, regional
blocs seem to become factors that have to be taken seriously in the future trading system. One of the most striking development in the
world trading system since the mid 1990s is a surge in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). “Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs)
are a major and perhaps irreversible feature of the multilateral trading system” is the opening sentence
of a Working Paper of Crawford and Fiorentino (2006) [11]. Initially WTO encouraged the growth of RTAs because it believed that
regional integration initiatives can complement the multilateral trade regime. However, the high proliferation of RTAs
in global trade and increased diversion of trade through this route is increasingly becoming a cause for
concern for the multilateral trading system under WTO. Many countries which traditionally
relied on the multilateral trade regime are increasingly joining regional agreements to promote trade.
Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are defined as groupings of countries which are formed with the objective of reducing barriers to
trade between member countries. Contrary to what the name suggests, these groupings or unions may be concluded between countries
not necessarily belonging to the same geographical region. Depending upon their level of integration, RTAs can be broadly divided
into five categories: Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs), Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Customs Unions (CUs), Common Markets
and Economic Unions. The main reason for WTO member’s preference of bilateral FTAs1 before multilateral FTAs or CUs is probably
the mere fact that bilateral FTAs are easier to conclude than multilateral FTAs and certainly a lot easier than a CU. Apart from this
there are two types of regional agreements which provide “deep integration”. 2 Among the Regional Trade Agreements, a large majority
of the agreements are PTAs or FTAs. In contrast, there are only a handful of Customs Unions, Common Markets and Economic Unions
worldwide. The new generation of RTAs, especially those comprising developed countries, includes more regional rules on investment,
competition and standards; as well as provisions on environment and labour. Most of these new agreements also include preferential
regulatory frameworks for mutual services trade. These explanations can be divided into three broad categories. First is the traditional
explanation of welfare effects through trade liberalization and the consequent gains from trade at a regional level. Viner, [14]
introduced the concepts of “trade creation’ and “trade diversion” and showed that the net effect of trade liberalization on a regional
basis is not unambiguously positive. He pointed out that RTAs can lead to trade creation if RTA members switch from inefficient
domestic producers and import more from efficient producers from other members of the RTA. In this case, efficiency gains arise from
both production efficiency and consumption efficiency. Trade creation and trade diversion have opposite welfare implications and the
net effect will depend upon which of these two effects dominate. Krugman (1991) [11]is of the opinion that the beneficial effect of a
regional trade agreement will depend on whether there is enough “inherent regionalism” in the transport costs between the member
countries of the RTA. According to Bhagwati,[17] trade diversion is more likely to dominate trade creation in
most situations. When trade is multilateral, i.e. when countries import from and export to union members as well as outside
countries, trade diversion is inevitable. There is an emerging consensus among economists that frustration with the
multilateral trading system is one of the prime reasons behind the current growth of regionalism .
Krugman suggests that countries find regionalism an easier alternative because large number of participants in multilateral trade
negotiations reduces the cost of non-cooperation and creates rigidity in the system. Also according to him, modern trade barriers are
much more complicated to negotiate in a multilateral forum and most countries find it easier to deal with these issues on bilateral or
regional level. Baldwin [14] in his “domino theory of regionalism” describes similar motivation for joining regional groupings. He
believes that regionalism did not occur because countries have lost faith in GATT or because USA has adopted regionalism. There is
another big debate in the current international trade literature about whether regionalism can help or hinder the multilateral trading
system. There are opposing views among economists about the role of regionalism in the current global trade system. Krugman is of
the opinion that regional trade blocs are welfare improving in nature and are unlikely to have any negative impact on the multilateral
trade system. Baldwin [14] does not see regionalism as a threat to the multilateral trading system. According to him, because trade is
“already quite free in major trading nations, few regional liberalizations are capable of creating anti-liberalization forces”. Therefore,
he concludes that most regional trade agreements will weaken the opponents of trade liberalization and hence will promote and foster
multilateral trade liberalization. But the dominant view among mainstream economists suggests that regionalism is harmful for the
multilateral trading system. For example Bhagwati and Krueger [18] think that preferential trade agreements
are essentially discriminatory in nature and they view the drift towards PTAs as a serious
threat to the multilateral trading system. Increased regionalism is dangerous because it
not only leads to inter block trade wars and domination of small countries by bigger partners
 also because it reduces the enthusiasm for participation in the multilateral
in the regional blocks but
trade regime. They worry that RTAs divert attention from the multilateral trading system.
They argue that most preferential agreements lead to trade discrimination and thereby harm
the multilateral trading system. Bhagwati also argues that the growing number of PTAs may lead to
a complex system of regulatory structures. This phenomenon, known also as the “spaghetti-bowl” problem,
may lead to complexity and lack of transparency in the global trading system. As well known,
the WTO was set up to liberalize international trade on the principle of non-discrimination and to eliminate
trade barriers through multilateral negotiations. It has contributed to expanding world trade and is expected to do more if the current
DDA multilateral negotiations are completed ever. Some 421 RTAs have been notified to the GATT/WTO up to December 2008. If we
take into account RTAs which are in force but have not been notified, those signed but not yet in force, those currently being negotiated,
and those in the proposal stage, we arrive at a figure far more than 400 RTAs. They are scheduled to be
implemented by 2010. Of these RTAs free trade agreements and partial scope agreements account for over 90% of the turnover
while CUs account for less than 10%. Regional trade agreements represent an important exception to the
WTO's principle of nondiscrimination. According to the WTO rules, countries within a RTA can trade among themselves
using preferential tariffs and easier market access conditions than what is applicable to other WTO member countries. As a result,
WTO member countries that are not a part of the RTA lose out in these markets. As
increasing amount of global trade is being diverted through this route, there is a certain amount
apprehension about the role of regional trade agreements in WTO.In general Article I (GATT,1947) forbids any preferential trading
arrangements (the „Most Favoured Nation” principle). An exception to this is that Regional Trade Agreements are permitted, so long
as they take the form of customs unions or free trade areas satisfying the conditions of Article XXIV, essentially that „substantially all
trade” is fully liberalised, and that there is no overall increase in external protection. Article XXIV being an exception to the MFN
principle allows discrimination instead of combating it. The formation of an FTA or CU is regulated under Article XXIV GATT 1994,
which provides for more beneficial treatment between members to a RTA than that afforded by the schedule of concessions negotiated
under the WTO Article XXIV, consequently, provides for an exception from the MFN-Principle.” [21] The MFN exception stated in
Article XXIV may at first sight seem illogical, since the only way to be excused from applying non MFN consistent and discriminatory
trade preferences is to completely discriminate, (MFN denies all discriminatory preferences meanwhile the MFN exception in Article
XXIV allows discriminatory preferences if they are completely discriminatory against the non RTA members).Other exception are
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)Article V, The Enabling Clause3 and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).
There is an increased attention being paid to regional arrangements. The threat to the multilateral trading system does not appear to
be as large as is often reported. The debate about whether RTAs are” building blocks or stumbling blocks”
for global freer trade, which was so virulent in the 1990s, faded
because, whatever the answer to the question, in practice
RTAs have made so little difference either way. The impact on the global trading regime of the
hundreds of RTAs notified to the GATT/WTO as being in contravention of the MFN principle has been trivial compared
to the establishment of multilateral trade law based on the nondiscrimination
principle. The dissemination of regionalism can contract and distort non-discriminatory multilateralism .Countries are too
diverse in their developments. Negotiations under the framework of WTO take too much time as well. Regionalism is then an
alternative to consider, at least, for countries geographically close to each other, especially for countries with close economic exchanges
and interests.

WTO structure is key – regionalism alone results in bad trade governance and
minimal trade growth
Leal-Arcas 11 (Rafael, PhD – European University Institute, JSM – Stanford Law, LLM –
Columbia Law, M. Phil – London School of Economics, BA/JD – Granada University, Senior
Lecturer in International Economic Law & European Union Law and Deputy Director of
Graduate Studies @ Queen Mary University of London, “Proliferation of Regional Trade
Agreements: Complementing or Supplanting Multilateralism?” Winter 2011, 11 Chi. J. Int'l L.
597, TMP)

However, there are also negative effects of RTAs on the multilateral trading system. There is less enthusiasm for
multilateral trade negotiations (like that of the Doha Round) when regionalism is doing well, which is currently the case. The current
proliferation of RTAs also creates less transparency in the multilateral trading system
and rules (that is, the so-called spaghetti bowl, as can be seen in map 5 below), because it is not clear who is
doing what with whom, given that everyone is concluding RTAs with everyone.94 This lower
level of transparency in the multilateral trading rules results in traders being subject to multiple,
sometimes conflicting, requirements. Trade and investment diversion could be
another negative effect of RTAs on the multilateral trading system. However, some scholars argue that regional trade
liberalization may create (rather than divert) significant economic growth within a region, which can, in turn, generate more trade with the rest of the
world.95 In this respect, after analyzing a report by the Asian Development Bank published in 2008, 96 Masahiro Kawai and Ganeshan Wignaraja found
“that business in the [Asian] region tend to view FTAs as a benefit rather than a burden, and that they use them to expand trade to a far greater degree
than had been previously thought.”97 That said, economic studies of FTAs have shown that the trade-
creation effects may often be smaller than the trade-diversion effects, given that trade
between the participants replaces trade between the participants and non-participants. It seems,
therefore, that it is not clear whether RTAs create or divert trade.98 Another effect of RTAs is arguably that the weakest countries
tend to be left out. Furthermore, there is a risk of polarization in the international trading
system with the tremendous proliferation of RTAs currently taking place. As such, four large regions
appear to emerge as a result of RTA proliferation: (1) the European RTA network,99 (2) the Western hemisphere RTA
network (NAFTA, Mercosur,100 the Andean Community,101 the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)102), (3) the Asia-Pacific RTA
network,103 and (4) the African RTA network. Having said all this, multilateralism and
regionalism/bilateralism are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, several countries in different regions of the world
work intensively on regional treaties about integrating regional markets and free trade. The EU is one example. Even though European
countries have worked for European integration in several areas , such as market integration, for more than fifty
years, European countries—with the European Community on the sideline with wide influence in the GATT and now the
EU as a Member of the WTO—have worked to improve the multilateral system.104 In the case of Africa, there
is the African Economic Community (AEC),105 and in South America, there is the Union of South American Nations (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas–
UNASUR),106 the Andean Community, and Mercosur. Those organizations all work for a deeper integration of regional markets, but the various
countries that belong to these regional organizations are making serious efforts on the multilateral
level as well. Although the Doha Round has been quite challenging, making only slow progress since its inception, it
must be noted that several agreements are being negotiated, and 153 WTO Members,
all with different interests, are taking part in these multilateral negotiations. Looking historically at the
GATT/WTO, the number of multilateral agreements has increased, even as regional agreements
have been concluded by GATT/WTO Members. One possible way to bridge the gap between multilateralism and regionalism/bilateralism is
by making more use of plurilateral agreements,107 which allow smaller groups of WTO Members to move forward, outside the single undertaking, on
issues important to them. An example of a successful plurilateral agreement is the 1996 Information Technology Agreement— dependent on a critical
(but not universal) mass of signatories. Another example is the plurilateral Government Procurement Agreement,108 which is one of the most relevant
One wonders whether RTAs are the center of
agreements in the WTO today, with potential for membership expansion. VII. Conclusion
gravity of the international trading system, whether the multilateral trading system is the center of gravity, or
whether we have a symbiosis between regionalism and multilateralism in the international
trading system and, if not, how we can get there given that they coexist. RTAs might certainly allow developing
countries to secure preferential treatment vis-a-vis their competitors. An example is the European Community-Mexico RTA, whereby the Europeans
provide preferential treatment to Mexico.10' This may provoke the Brazilians to try to conclude an RTA with the EU in order to obtain preferential
treatment from the Europeans. RTA partners make concessions that they would not extend to other WTO Members in multilateral trade negotiations,
because coming to an agreement regionally is easier than multilaterally. A good example is the US-Singapore FTA, which includes clauses on competition,
thereby going beyond the WTO agenda. However, the US found it very difficult to make concessions to India on agriculture in the multilateral context as
RTAs nevertheless have limitations, such as the
evidenced by the July 2008 WTO mini-ministerial conference.
fact that RTA negotiations tend to be asymmetrical. This asymmetry often results in
imbalanced deals, such as the case between Mexico and the US in the context of NAFTA. This
article concludes that the proliferation of RTAs implies the erosion of the WTO law principle of
non-discrimination and wonders whether this means the beginning of the end of
multilateralism. It also concludes that the single undertaking—which seems too ambitious in today's multilateral trading system—is no longer
feasible because the WTO has more Members than ever (and WTO membership is an ongoing process, with more Members to come in the near future)
and covers more topics than ever, which are more complex than ever. As an alternative, this article suggests variable geometry (that is, the idea that only
a few WTO Members will benefit from plurilateral agreements on several topics on the agenda) and sectoral agreements (that is, all WTO members
participate in negotiations and benefit from the agreed outcomes, but only one topic is discussed at a time, as was the case of the WTO Telecoms
Agreement) as a way forward to unblock the multilateral trading system. The variable-geometry approach has the advantage of removing the current
frustration at the WTO negotiating table—and sometimes violent protests organized by civil society—with its slow negotiating pace. However, one
disadvantage is that developing countries at the WTO might feel marginalized. In relation to the Doha Round—or any round, for that
matter—there is a need for serious political will if we want it to succeed. It is evident that there is currently an institutional
fatigue. This article therefore proposes a Doha-light option—lowering the expectations of the Doha Round. This translates into less market opening
for agricultural products. Nevertheless, it should be made clear that the big trade challenges of
today, whether climate change or energy resource scarcity, cannot be solved
without multilateralism. Bilateral and regional agreements offer no substitute for global
rule-making and coherent governance of a globalized economy. Moreover, bilateral and
regional deals do not come close to matching the economic impact of agreeing to a
global deal. Therefore, RTAs can be a complement but not an alternative to multilateralism.
 AT: RTA SOLVES ASIA-PACIFIC
Doesn’t solve in Asia
Kurlantzick 13
(Joshua Kurlantzick is a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR). Mr. Kurlantzick was most recently a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, where he studied Southeast Asian politics and economics and China's
relations with Southeast Asia, including Chinese investment, aid, and diplomacy, “The financial
crash” April 2, 2013, Pakistan Today, Vol. III No. 273, TMP)
Even if the slowdown soon ends: if Xi Jinping in China and Barack Obama in the US can use their mandates to push for freer trade and global integration:
deglobalisation will last decades, putting a ceiling on how much the world economy
the long-term effects of this
can ever rebound .For at least a century, the world economy has run in cycles, in which integration,
in the form of closer trade and financial ties, cross-border bank lending, and rising trade and migration, has been followed by
short periods of slowdown and deglobalisation, periods in which the world economy became less
linked together. At times, the slowdown and de-globalisation was precipitated by world wars, as in the 1910s. At other times, it was
precipitated by major energy shocks, such as in the early 1970s. Yet after each period of deglobalisation, the world
economy quickly bounced back, with banks soon seeing new opportunities to lend abroad, new trade rounds launching, new companies
springing up to increase global exports, and new financial services products emerging to tie markets together. Not so this time. This de-
globalisation is so severe that its effects will not be easily reversed. In nearly every leading nation, not only politicians on the left: the opponents of
globalisation in earlier periods: but also on the right have come to a consensus sceptical of greater economic integration. In
the 2012 US
presidential campaign, Mitt Romney attacked trade with China even more than Barack Obama, while
both Democrats and Republicans almost unanimously supported new measures to block Chinese
telecommunications firm Huawei from investing in 4G phone networks in the US: and received
no opposition even from the most pro-business Republicans. Meanwhile in France the right-leaning Gaullist parties,
under Nicolas Sarkozy and his heirs, have become as supportive of greater protectionism as the Socialist Party, which under the current president,
Francois Hollande, has enacted new import restrictions on major trading partners like South Korea and pushed French supermarkets to sell only French
products.Meanwhile, leaders of many developing nations have become nearly as sceptical of globalisation as their western peers.In the past year, major
coalition partners of the Indian Congress government have left the coalition to block the prime minister's efforts to open up India to foreign retail. In
Brazil, the president, Dilma Rousseff, has increasingly pushed for greater protection of strategic Brazilian industries, telling the UN: "We cannot accept
that legitimate initiatives of commercial defence by developing countries can be classified as protectionist."Politicians, at least, often exit the scene without
having lasting effects. But more frightening, the financial institutions that once propelled globalisation have retrenched so badly that their shift will last
for years. Today, as crisis-hit European nations have passed legislation forcing banks to maintain higher capital requirements and to invest more within
their own borders, these European institutions, which had been the major sources of emerging world investments, have started a process of massive
deleveraging. Until two years ago, European banks accounted for about 90 per cent of all foreign bank lending in Africa, eastern Europe, and the Middle
The World Trade
East. That figure is dropping rapidly.Trade, one of the other pillars of globalisation, also will take decades to recover.
Organisation's current round of negotiations, known as the Doha Round, has been stalled for years, and the regional free
trade agreements enacted by Asian nations in part to replace Doha contain far less liberalisation
than meets the eye. A third major pillar of the globalisation of the 1990s and 2000s was increased migration.But as the economic
slowdown has morphed into a longer-term period of stagnation, the tolerance of wealthier nations for migration has
ebbed. In the US, the Republican Party's 2012 platform called for "self-deportation" of illegal migrants in the US. This tough stance is being echoed in
many other wealthy nations, where the level of anti-immigrant sentiment is high.Even
tiny Singapore, a country that despite
the global slowdown has maintained a GDP per capita of $61,000 at purchasing power parity and
which depends on trade and foreign workers to prosper, has seen its public turn sour on migration.
Anti-foreign worker sentiment helped propel the Singaporean opposition, dormant for decades, to its strongest showing ever in last year's elections, as it
criticised the ruling party for being too lenient in allowing migration.As trade flows, financial globalisation, and cross-border migration recede, the state
While state-owned
has returned to power around the world, turning back the gains made by free markets in the 1990s and early 2000s.
enterprises only controlled six times as much of China's industrial output as private firms in 2004,
today they control 11 times as much. And they are hardly unique. In the years 2004-2009, while 120 state-
owned companies made their debut on the Forbes list of the world's largest corporations, more
than 250 Western private companies fell off that list.For the global economy, this probably will
mean a dearth of new entrepreneurial companies, particularly in developing nations. In
addition, it will mean that trade wars probably will only escalate, since these
regional trade deals do not hold world leaders to the tough standards that previous WTO
rounds did; in the long run, this could lead to an overall decline in trade, which would make
the entire international economy far less dynamic, and could even lead to greater political
tensions between big trading powers such as the US and China.
TPP devastates China Relations- seen as a containment strategy
Huang 14 (Yukon, Senior Associate Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, July 15, 2014, “China and Pacific Accords”,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/07/15/china-and-pacific-accords/hfxh///TS)
China, while a member of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, remains wary of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership: it sees the TPP as an American effort to contain Chinese influence
in the region. It might behoove Beijing to join the partnership, however, so as to have greater influence over negotiations. It
certainly behooves all concerned to work together to keep Asia’s economic dynamism rolling. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
left the dock several years ago, with China seemingly happy to let it sail without providing a cabin for the soon to be designated
world’s largest trading nation. Was this a good decision for the world’s second-largest economy? Will that trade grouping
compete with or complement the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that
China is already involved with? Getting the details of these mega-regional trade deals wrong
could seriously damage Asia’s regional economic infrastructure – a point which is often overlooked, not to
mention China’s own longer-term interests in shaping the outlines of such initiatives. US policy-
makers stress that the TPP is designed to set the highest standards for future trade and investment treaties including principles that
would affect a number of sensitive issues including intellectual property rights (IPR), labor and environmental regulations and
treatment of state enterprises. In doing so, it would influence the framework for future multilateral or bilateral negotiations
including help build a platform for the seemingly moribund WTO sponsored discussions. Clearly setting such high
standards is also in America’s interests since in most areas, it is seen as the benchmark for
global standards. Many Chinese policy-makers, however, view the TPP with suspicion, charging
that it is part of a containment strategy by the US. Yes, the deal may be presented as setting a twenty-first century,
high standard agreement that will benefit the global economy, but it is also seen as furthering America’s strategic interests in the
Asia-Pacific. After all, how else can one explain why an initiative that began in 2005 among four relatively minor global players
(Singapore, Brunei, Chile and New Zealand) was taken over by the US in 2008 and elevated into a mega regional pact that has now
brought in such major economies as Japan, Canada, Mexico and possibly even South Korea and Thailand in due course. That the
TPP got so much play at the same time that the much heralded American “pivot” or rebalancing
toward Asia was announced has only strengthened perceptions among many Chinese policy-
makers that the TPP is part of some kind of strategy to check its growing regional clout. This
would explain the interests of countries like Vietnam and Malaysia whose position on issues like
the role of state enterprises and IPR is closer to that of China than the U.S.
 AT: WTO CAUSES WARMING
WTO does not cause warming – trade solves emissions better
Tamiotti 09,
(Ludivine Tamiotti is an environment expert for the WTO, “Trade and Trade and Climate
Change”, https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/trade_climate_change_e.pdf, TMP)
2. Scale, composition and technique effects How does trade opening aff ect greenhouse gas
emissions? Trade economists have developed a conceptual framework to examine how trade
opening may aff ect the environment. This framework, first used to study the environmental impact of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), breaks down the impact of trade opening into three “eff
ects”: the scale eff ect (i.e. how greenhouse gas emissions may increase as a result of increased economic activity); the
composition eff ect (i.e. the way trade opening, and consequent changes in relative prices, may aff ect the relative size of the various
sectors that make up a country’s production); and the technique eff ect (i.e. the manner in which technological improvements may
be adopted to reduce the emission-intensity of the production of goods and services) (Grossman and Krueger, 1993). Export Volume
(1950 = 100) Per cent of World GDP Year Exports Share of Exports in World GDP 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1950
1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Sources: WTO (2008b) and Maddison (2001). FIGURE 1: Rising
trade share of global output, 1950-2007 50 Trade and Climate Change Copeland and Taylor
(2003) provide a defi nition of these eff ects from a general equilibrium model of trade and the
environment. Some international organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) (1994), have adopted or extended this conceptual framework in order to evaluate
the environmental impact of trade agreements.6 This analytic framework can be applied
to investigate the link between trade and climate change. While the scale eff ect may
worsen climate change, the technique eff ect may help to mitigate it. Th ere is some
uncertainty, however, about the impact the composition eff ect would have on climate
change. Th e “scale eff ect” refers to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions resulting
from an expanded level of economic activity. According to Copeland and Taylor (2004), the scale eff ect can
be defi ned as the increase in the value of production, measured in world prices as they were
prior to trade opening.7 If there are unemployed resources (labour, capital or land) prior to
liberalization, trade opening will allow greater utilization of these resources and will thus lead to
an expansion in the level of production.8 Th is increased level of economic activity will, in turn,
require greater energy use and since most countries rely on fossil fuels as their
primary energy source, the scale eff ect will lead to higher levels of greenhouse gas
emissions. Furthermore, increased trade will give rise to a greater use of cross-border transportation
services, which will increase greenhouse gas emissions even further. Th e scale eff ect is
conceptually diff erent from economic growth, since the latter is a result of capital
accumulation, population growth and technological change.9 Nevertheless, there is a
presumption that, in theory, greater trade opening will lead to economic growth
through (indirect) mechanisms that aff ect the rate of capital accumulation and
improvements in productivity.10 Given that economic growth is closely linked with energy use,
this will magnify the impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, it has not been easy to demonstrate a
statistically signifi cant relationship between trade barriers, in the form of tariff and non-tariff
measures, and the rate of economic growth (Baldwin, 2000). In the 1990s, a number of studies
appeared to show that “open” economies (with liberal trade policies) grew faster than “closed”
economies. Dollar (1992), for example, estimated that the growth rate of Latin American and African economies would increase
by between 1.5 and 2.1 per cent if they adopted more open trade policies. A study by Sachs and Warner (1995) fi nds that developing
countries with more open trade policies grew at a rate of 4.5 per cent per year, while closed economies grew by only 0.7 per cent per
year. However, these studies have been criticized for the use of measures of openness
which are closely linked with other indicators of good economic performance,
such as lack of restrictions on foreign exchange markets (Rodriguez and Rodrik, 1999). Th ere
is also a problem involving the endogeneity of trade and growth (Edwards, 1998). Th is
refers to the possibility of a twoway rather than a one-way relationship between trade and
economic growth. In other words, while more trade may have a positive impact on
economic growth, growth may, in turn, lead to an increase in trade. Th us, a positive
relationship between trade and growth does not automatically tell us that trade is causing higher
growth. Baldwin’s (2000) survey is careful to point out, however, that these problems should not be
interpreted as indicating that international economic policies in general or
international trade have only an insignifi cant eff ect on economic growth. Th e
“composition eff ect” refers to the way that trade opening changes the share that each
sector represents in a country’s production in response to changes in relative prices, resulting in
the expansion of some sectors and the contraction of others. Th e consequent increase or decrease of
greenhouse gas emissions will depend on whether the emission-intensive sectors are expanding or contracting. Changes in the
structure of a liberalizing country’s production will depend on where the country’s “comparative
advantage” (in terms of resources and capacity) lies: if its comparative advantage is in sectors which
are less emission-intensive, then trade opening will lead to lower greenhouse gas
emissions, but if it is in the more emission-intensive sectors, then liberalization will lead to greater emissions of greenhouse
gas. Part II: Trade and Climate Change: Theory and Evidence 51 Part I Part II Part III Part IV In addition, the “pollution-haven
hypothesis”11 implies that the composition of production in a liberalizing economy will also respond to diff erences between
countries in environmental regulations. If a country has stringent environmental protection measures in
place, the increased competition brought about by trade opening may lead emission-intensive
sectors to relocate to countries with weaker regulations. In the context of greenhouse gas
emissions, the eff ect of international diff erences in climate change policies raises
the likelihood of “carbon leakage”. This term refers to a situation in which the measures
taken by some countries to limit their carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions at a national level do not
ultimately result in a global CO2 reduction, because industries emitting high levels of CO2
simply relocate to countries which do not impose such strong penalties on emissions. Th is topic is
reviewed in Part IV. Changes in the composition of the liberalizing country’s production,
whether resulting from its “comparative advantage” or from the pollution-haven hypothesis, will have an eff ect on
how the production of its trade partners is changed. If trade opening results in a
country producing fewer emission-intensive goods, then they must be procured
elsewhere, giving rise to an expansion in the production of those goods in other parts of the
world. Th e pattern of expansion and contraction of certain sectors of industry in the liberalizing country will be mirrored in
reverse in the rest of the world. Th is suggests that trade opening can lead to some countries
“specializing” in more emissionintensive industries, while other countries
concentrate on “cleaner” industries. Th e net eff ect on greenhouse gas emissions at the
global level will depend on the relative strengths of these eff ects. Finally, the technique eff ect
refers to improvements in the methods by which goods and services are produced,
so that the quantity of emissions released during the production process declines. Following
Grossman and Krueger (1993), this reduction in greenhouse gas emission may come about in
two ways. First, more open trade will increase the availability and lower the cost of
climate-friendly goods and services. Th is is particularly important for countries which do not
have access to climate-friendly goods and services, or whose domestic industries do not produce
such goods and services in suffi cient amounts or at aff ordable prices. Access to the
technologies used in the production of climate-friendly goods and services should
reduce the energy required during production, and thus reduce emissions. For
exporters, the prospect of increased market access would provide an incentive to develop new goods and services that help mitigate
climate change. Such potential benefi ts of more open trade highlight the importance of the current negotiations under the Doha
Round, which aim to liberalize environmental goods and services (see Section III.B). Second, the increase in
income levels that trade opening brings about can lead the general public to
demand lower greenhouse gas emissions (a cleaner environment is a “normal” good).12 Increased
incomes or wealth gives populations the freedom to be concerned about other aspects of their
well-being, such as better environmental quality. Grossman and Krueger (1993) conjecture that this
public demand is perhaps the most important outcome of the technique effect. For
rising income to lead to environmental improvement, however, governments need to respond
to the public’s demands with the appropriate fi scal and regulatory measures. Only if
such measures are put in place will firms adopt cleaner production technologies, so that a
given level of output can be produced with lower greenhouse gas emissions than
previously. Torras and Boyce (1998), who examined the available evidence on international variations in seven
indicators of air and water quality, find that the degree of inequality in incomes, as well as
inequalities in levels of literacy, political rights and civil liberties, had a substantial impact on
the quality of environmental protection in low-income countries. Countries which had a
more equitable distribution of income and which achieved greater equality in
literacy, political rights and civil liberties tended to have better environmental
quality. This evidence suggests that increases in income from trade opening may not translate
into environmental improvements if the economic benefi ts are not shared more equitably
among the population. While trade openness does not appear to be a major factor in
income inequality in developed countries, the evidence is more mixed for developing
countries.13 52 Trade and Climate Change Due to the opposing nature of the scale and technique eff ects, Grossman and
Krueger’s study suggests that the relationship between per capita income and environmental quality may be non-linear. For
countries with low levels of per capita income, increased economic growth may initially lead to deterioration of environmental
quality. Only once a certain income threshold has been crossed do further increases in per capita income lead to gains in
environmental quality. Th e “environmental Kuznets curve” (as this inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental quality
and income has been called) has generated a great deal of research interest. Much of the theoretical literature on this topic has
attempted to explain the nature and causes of this non-linear relationship between per capita income and environmental quality. Th
e explanations have been varied. Some have alluded to indivisibilities in technologies, which means that below a certain threshold of
income only polluting technologies are used, while cleaner technologies are used only when income rises above that threshold
(Stokey, 1998). Some attribute the non-linearity between income and environmental quality to the fact that pollution is generated by
consumption while there are increasing “returns to scale” in abatement, which implies that abatement of pollution becomes more
effi cient as an economy becomes richer (Andreoni and Levinson, 2001). Still other explanations ascribe the environmental Kuznets
curve to the presence of pollution stock externalities, which means that if the stock of pollution depreciates quickly the net benefi ts
from pollution control will rise with income (Kelly, 1997). While others, still, have described it as a consequence of developed
countries exporting their older, more pollution-intensive technologies to developing countries (Suri and Chapman, 1998). In terms
of political economy, the presence of advanced collective decision-making institutions (such as representative democracy) in
developed countries and the absence of such institutions in some developing countries may explain this inverted U-shaped
relationship (Jones and Manuelli, 1995). However, the “environmental Kuznets curve” might not be
applicable to global pollution. Since greenhouse
 AT: INDIA WARMING - ECON O/W
WTO ruling helps econ---won’t hurt warming efforts
Shimizu, 16
(Aiko, March 10, reporter @ Bloomberg New Energy Finance. BA University of Chicago, MA
Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and JD UPenn
globalriskinsights.com/2016/03/what-does-the-wto-ruling-mean-for-u-s-india-solar/)//cb
From a political standpoint, the WTO ruling in the U.S.-India case sent a strong message to India and other countries that may have
been considering the implementation of such domestic content rules. While these measures are protectionist, it
makes sense for governments to implement such rules to stimulate the economy and
create jobs, especially in times of slow economic growth and rising levels of unemployment.
Indeed, since the implementation of the National Solar Mission, major solar companies have
announced their plans to establish factories in India to produce solar cells, modules, and panels,
leading to job creation and allowing politicians to gain domestic support in the short-term. The
ruling in this case has closed the imbalance between domestic producers and consumers.
Governments implement domestic content rules to support producers in their own countries. Placing restrictions on imported solar
panels and modules, which may be cheaper for consumers, would prevent domestic producers from going out of business because
consumers’ choices will be limited to those that are produced domestically. However, in most cases, consumers do not
discriminate between domestic or imported products as long as they are cheaper . In this sense, the
domestic content rules had generated profit for producers at the expense of consumers. With this WTO ruling, cheaper
foreign panels will enter the market, thereby driving down the cost for consumers. Combating climate
change The success of this program has made the country’s solar industry to quickly become one of the fastest growing solar
industries in the world and led India to make the National Solar Mission a core pillar for meeting its climate obligations to COP 21.
In fact, during times of weak global economy with high unemployment rate, there is fear that governments may continue to utilize
protectionist policies. Nevertheless, in the long-term, such protectionist trade policies are not effective in achieving green growth
because they do not drive down cost or foster innovation in clean energy technologies. From an economic perspective then, the
ruling will serve as a catalyst for innovation in clean energy technologies. Such innovation is crucial for
tackling climate change and achieving sustainable growth. Competition plays a major part in innovation. With
domestic producers becoming forced to compete against foreign producers after this ruling,
there may be more room for both foreign and domestic companies to innovate and produce
better technologies. Although many environmentalists have criticized the WTO ruling by
arguing that it was a setback in tackling climate change, the impact on India’s ability to
meet its climate targets may not be as serious as perceived. While India will now have to allow
for imported solar panels instead of relying solely on domestic ones to meet its targets, it does not necessarily mean that the nation
would no longer be able to fulfill these climate obligations from solar power generation. India could still generate its
electricity from solar power. The panels that are utilized in the plants would just not come from
those supplied by domestic solar producers alone. If cheaper imported panels became available,
consumers would still continue to use solar power for electricity generation.
 AT: WTO HURTS ENVIRONMENT
Doesn’t hurt environmental agreements
Trebilcock 05
Michael J. Trebilcock is Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Economics Program at the
University of Toronto, January 20, 2005, “CRITIQUING THE CRITICS OF ECONOMIC
GLOBALIZATION” http://iilj.org/courses/documents/HC2005.Trebilcock.EconGlobal.pdf,
TMP)
Claim 3: Trade liberalization trumps environmental, health and safety concerns There are two strands to the argument that trade liberalization adversely impacts environmental,
health and safety concerns. According to the first, growth in international trade generally is harmful to the environment. The second strand asserts that, under the WTO dispute
settlement system, trade liberalization takes precedence over environmental, health and safety concerns. LeGrain37 argues that the impact of trade liberalization on the
environment depends on the balance of five factors. First, comparative advantage will lead to some countries attracting more environmentally damaging industries than others.
Second, environmentally friendly technology will become more widely available. Third, economic growth resulting from trade
will lead to increased environmental strain unless production methods change. Fourth, demand for a cleaner environment will increase
when people become wealthier. Fifth, countries may or may not choose to lower environmental standards to attract foreign investment. Krueger and
Grossman38 find that while growth is initially harmful to the environment, this effect generally begins to reverse

itself as countries get richer (the so-called Kuznets curve). Furthermore, evidence suggests that trade liberalization can pay

for the damage it causes, because the gains from trade far exceed the cost of paying for or redressing
resultant environmental damage.39 Evidence suggests that fears of an environmental “race to the
bottom”, whereby environmental standards decline to attract investment, are generally unfounded. Wheeler40 examined
pollution levels in the United States and China, Brazil and Mexico, the three developing countries
receiving the most foreign direct investment during the 1990s, and found that in each case particulate pollution is
declining. He then draws on empirical evidence to show why the “race to the bottom” has not
materialized. Specifically, studies show that pollution control costs are often not high, regardless of a
county’s income, and consequently do not provide firms with a strong incentive to relocate due to
environmental factors. Also, where there is not strong regulation, local communities use other
mechanisms, such as negotiation or forms of protest , to ensure that factories meet environmental
standards or to extract compensation for environmental degradation. Additional pressure may be brought by
environmentally conscious consumers or financial institutions who want to avoid possible
liability. Evidence also indicates that investors’ reactions to environmental news impact stock value. Consequently, there is a powerful incentive
for multinational companies to abide by OECD environmental standards globally. Finally,
environmental regulation improves as a country’s income increases. Wheeler qualifies his criticism of the “race to the
bottom” theory with three points: severe short-term pollution in some areas is still possible, information asymmetries may prevent effective environmental controls, and it is likely
that average pollution intensity (emissions/output) will initially increase as the industrial production in developing countries rises relative to that in developed countries. Wheeler
argues that trade sanctions are not the most effective way to avoid or mitigate the impact of these pitfalls because sanctions impact companies that are environmentally friendly
as well as those that are not, they put jobs at risk, and many developing countries are incapable of meeting high environmental standards.

The WTO will make a complementary ruling

Gayathri 09
(P.G. Gayathri and Reshma R. Kurup, National University of Advanced Legal Studies, (NUALS),
Kochi, India, Am. J. of Economics and Business Administration, 1 (3), 2009, “Reconciling the
Bio Safety Protocol and the WTO Regime: Problems, Perspectives and Possibilities”, 236-242,
TMP)

Trade and environment: Conflicting or concerting: Over

the last two decades, environmental provisions have permeated
been mainstreamed into the multilateral trading system, through the incorporation of
into and have
environmental provisions under new WTO agreements and a wider interpretation of the GATT Article XX
exceptions in the post-WTO regime through trade-environment disputes[10]. All these point towards the
fact that WTO and MEAs cover much the same ground and can be interpreted constructively. Free trade and a safe
environment are not entirely incongruent concepts, but rather they are analogous concepts capable of a symbiotic relation. They
can reinforce and strengthen each other, if understood and applied in a pragmatic and realistic mode. Moreover, avoiding a
contradictory interpretation is in the best interest of both environment and trade, because an
irreconcilable impasse would be a no-win situation, with unacceptable casualties on both the trade
and environmental sides. Further, international law recognizes a presumption against conflict and the concept
of relating to the same subject matter in Article 30 of the Vienna Convention must be construed strictly[11]. A conflict in the strict sense of
direct incompatibility arises only where a party to the two treaties cannot simultaneously comply with its obligations under both treaties[12]. This means
that instances of irreconcilable conflicts will not often take place. Thus, even without a savings clause, a
WTO tribunal would be reluctant to find incompatibility between the Bio safety Protocol or other MEAs
and the WTO agreements[13]. Further, on the basis of the good faith principle, States are presumed to have negotiated all
their treaties in good faith, taking into account all their international law obligations. The WTO legal system is linked to the
rest of the international legal order and does not operate in isolation from existing rules of international law. The
International Law Commission, for example, recently emphasized the systemic nature of international law, in which fragmented norms are
resolvable through treaty interpretation and other rules[14]. Therefore, States’ obligations can only be
read together and be considered cumulative. As a consequence, in the case of any disagreement arising before the WTO dispute
settlement body, all international obligations and rights of WTO Members must be taken into account, including obligations under the Cartagena Protocol
and such other MEAs. In fact, the rights and obligations under such MEAs would be a useful tool for interpreting
WTO Members’ obligations, for instance their right to resort to GATT Article XX Exceptions. It
could be safely presumed that the requirements of the Protocol would be accorded significant
respect, at least with respect to parties to both WTO and Cartagena Protocol[15]. Even otherwise, the legitimacy or otherwise of trade-
regulating measures taken under the Protocol can be interpreted in the light of existing vast WTO jurisprudence on
the interpretation of Article XX of GATT. [16-19] Which has laid down several criteria like (a) effectiveness or environmental worth
of the trade restricting measure, (b) necessity of the trade measure in achieving the environmental objective of the MEA, (c) proportionality of the measure
to the need for trade restriction to achieve the environmental objective, (d) degree of scientific evidence, (e) least-trade restrictiveness. These criteria
would amply equip the decision making body to evolve a flexible approach which will
adequately preserve the interests of both regimes and would also enable both regimes to work
towards greater coordination in the achievement of their respective objectives. Hence, a context-oriented, mutually-
supportive interpretation within the existing international framework is not only possible, but would also
appease any chances of possible friction between the two regimes. Especially since GM products promise to
hold the key toward global food security and since no direct conflict between a multilateral environmental agreement and
trade rules has yet found its way before a WTO dispute settlement panel, it would be in the best interest of the international
community to wait and see the course it would take in the coming years, when more information and evidence would be available.
 AT: WTO HURTS CCP STABILITY
Enhancing Chinese WTO compliance key to stability
Gordiievska 12
(Anna Gordiievska, Master of Arts, International Relations and European Studies from Central
European University, Master of Arts, International Relations from Kyiv National Taras
Shevchenko University, May 2012, “China's Soft Power: Assessing China's Fulfillment of
International Obligations”, TMP)

CHAPTER 2: CHINA’S PARTICIPATION IN THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE REGIME Since its accession to WTO Beijing has
gained tremendous economic achievements, which won general endorsement across the world and evoked
particular interest among scholars. China’s image is largely associated with its successful economic growth, whereas its
development model is principally viewed as one of the major sources of China’s soft power. The sphere of trade is of particular
significance for China as it ensures its further economic development; therefore obligations in this field
represent important building block of China’s image. What we observe today in relations to Beijing’s
participation in the international trade regime is also China’s increased participation in WTO legal system ; this
includes Beijing’s involvement into settlement of both disputes lodged against China and
complaints initiated by Beijing. Intensified engagement with the dispute settlement system of the
WTO regime can be regarded as a driving force for boosting China’s image as an active and
law abiding participant of international trade. This chapter argues that the correlation between international
law and soft power is revealed through China’s accession and compliance with international rules
and shifting of its image as a responsible trade partner that actively resorts to international legal norms. For this, I identify
obligations that China has undertaken in the field of global trade, the level of China’s compliance therewith, and assess China’s image in relation to its
trade obligations within the WTO. 2.1 China’s Accession to WTO Obligations International trade obligations undertaken by China are directly linked to
its accession to the World Trade Organization. Beijing approved more than 3,000 rules and regulations, including new laws on protecting intellectual
property rights.59 In particular, they concerned reduction of tariffs, elimination of non-tariff barriers that denied national treatment and market access
for goods and services imported from other WTO members.60 Through undertaking new obligations China has shown its
respect toward international law and its willingness to become more engaged in the international legal
system. It is equally important to note that China naturally pursued its own economic interests when acceding to the WTO. Its achievements after the
accession period are very illustrative in this regard: during the last ten years its GDP has grown at an average of 9 percent per year and it moved from
being the fourth-largest trading nation to the second one, in both exports and imports. 61 Beijing has become one of the hottest
destinations for foreign direct investment, as well as a major creditor nation.62 In this respect, China’s gains from its accession to the WTO
compensate for the related challenges and risks it had to face.

Key to CCP stability

Zhang 12
(Wanfa Zhang is assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Communication at
Florida Institute of Technology and previously was a lecturer at China Foreign Affairs
University, Asian Perspective, 2012, 36, "Has Beijing Started to Bare Its Teeth? China’s Tapping
of Soft Power Revisited", 615-39, TMP)

The Domestic Dimension: Relegitimization of the Regime As the last major surviving communist state following the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the Beijing regime constantly faces even greater pressure to relegitimate itself . The CCP’s
original legitimacy was founded on its contribution in helping a war-torn and poverty-trodden China stand on its feet in the 1950s. However,
economic stagnation in the 1960s and 1970s caused by the party’s political and economic policy
mistakes, especially the Cultural Revolution, seriously eroded its initial base of legitimacy. Its subsequent embrace of
capitalism and de facto relinquishment of Marxism after the reform era further shook its political foundation and jeopardized its ruling position.
International sanctions imposed in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen suppression made Beijing look like a
pariah regime that was abhorred not only by its own people but also by the international
community. Beijing successfully broke its isolation in the immediate years after Tiananmen by taking advantage
of the international situation at that time, particularly the US-led repulsion of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. It also achieved striking
success on the home front by developing the economy, raising the living standards of its people, and improving its governance (Bergsten et al. 2009).
Nevertheless, China’s further opening up allowed its people more opportunities to interact with
the outside world, which raised their expectation of governmental performance. Beijing’s
performance on the world stage, such as relations with other countries and status in the world
community, became new indicators for Chinese people to judge the legitimacy of their
government. Thus, China’s rapid integration into the world made it important for Chinese leaders to
succeed on the international front in order to succeed on the home front. In the new era, Beijing continuously
needs to show its people, including the inhabitants of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, that rather than being an
international outcast, the country that it rules is a strong and a respected member of international
society. The continuous expansion of China’s hard power can prove that the country is becoming increasingly strong. However, real respect
and admiration have to be earned through the cultivation of a positive image and the buildup of soft
power.