one of my heroes here michelle chan who is with friends of the earth u s but also international and she works just around the corner at the the david brower center  running many different things that the that friends of the earth does but michele what you need to know about michelle is she probably understand the wall street's interactions with the environment as much as anybody in the world but what i'm going to ask her about today though is about the u s relationship with china and also the particular trade proposal that the obama administration has put forward called the trans pacific partnership which is one of the two big pillars in obama's pacific pivot well more about this later but the pacific pivot will be the subject of a large public teachin teachin will be explaining what it is the trade agenda of the united states to deal with the whole pacific region is a big part of what the pacific pivot is all about the pacific pivot on its own right is basically the u s strategy to encircle china it involves both massive military expansions throughout the region will be bringing about twenty indigenous peoples from around the pacific region some more infighting not only okinawa you island in south korea or the new us military expansion of the island of guam new bases in australia but all of this sort of commercial or rather military expansion to historical china is accompanied by a very aggressive trade and investment agenda you've heard of nafta the north american free trade agreement well this is the extension of nafta to the pacific the trans pacific partnership so let that be sort of an introduction michel to i know for instance most recently you produced a video on the t p p and there were some really specific things you were trying to get across to people because the t p s is totally unknown in fact i understand that even our elected members of congress cannot access the text that national trade negotiator is negotiating with these ten of their countries so you seem to know as much as anybody about the dangers of the tepee what was the video about what do we need to know about it well victor you are totally correct trans pacific partnership is actually one of the most is the most significant regional trade deals that the u s has ever contemplated it's undergoing negotiations right now and there are very very few people who really know what it's all about the negotiations themselves are done in pretty under closed door conditions the only people that have access to the text are the so called clear trade advisors and in the us there are actually many clear trade advisors but they tend to be industry groups or corporations and that means that civil society organizations such as environmental groups human rights organizations those organizations that advocate hiv aids medications and their availability as critical lifesaving medicines in the developing world and elsewhere aren't allowed access to text and as you note even members of congress aren't given access to the text and so the cloak of secrecy that surrounds the negotiations is sort of a medical issue that unites actually both people on the left and the right i mean both you know on capitol hill birth proponents of trade as well as skeptics of the trade you know gree that the tax needs to be open they need to be negotiated in a more transparent manner but aside from that and that's more of a procedural question there are really huge concerns with respect to what it would mean for the fate of our environmental regulations in the u s a lot of a lot of the work that international form of globalization has done as well as friends of the earth has been focused on something called the investment chapter of these trade negotiate these trade agreements that there is an investment chapter within nafta there's an investment chapter within a lot of these bilateral investment treaties which are individual  pacts between let's say the u s and other country and the dangerous thing about them is that they give corporations foreign multinational investors who may have an investment in a country  ability to potentially sue a country for promulgating or implementing environmental social public health or labor regulation example of that well one of the good examples that you can point to is  mexico and there was a u s multinational corporation which wanted to invest in a hazardous to its disposal facility in mexico and what happened is that the local officials had said in mexico  said well wait you know we need to take care of some really important drinking water related issues here because this hazardous waste disposal treatment plant could threaten the viability of local drinking water sources and so the long story short of that is that metal clad said well wait a minute you know you can't all of a sudden create this hostile investment climate to us you have to make sure that under this trade agreement with the united states have to make sure that our investment is protected and so alternately what happened is that metal clad actually took mexico to court under these special international trade tribunals this is under nafta under nafta exactly and claimed that their rights had been violated as a foreign investor under nafta that these onerous quote unquote environmental regulations around water would end up decreasing their profits and so so they're in their water in mexico was going to be against the rules of of nafta or would have put required the mexican authorities to pay a middle class pay damages so the choice that was left to mexico is the choice that would be left up to the united states as well under a lot of these types of investment agreements is that if there is an environmental social public health regulation that could impinge upon the profit making potential of the multinational corporation then that corporation could take us to court and force the u s or mexico or whatever country it is to either change its environmental law or public health law or pay damages for takings like a taking of proper not much of a choice i mean for the government either they've got to pay off the investor or protect their people it's right so it's really i mean an undermining of democratic decision making of democracy itself and of course of public health and environment and all of these you know kind of a social safety net so how do we know if the if the text is secret for the t p how do we know this sort of stuff is is in there well it happens to be that there was a leak portion of the transpacific partnership text that was actually that actually got out and so we don't have the vast majority of the text but we do actually have some of this leaked portion and so we know that these principles of investor to state they're called investor state dispute mechanisms these kind of foreign courts they sorry these separate courts for foreign capital so to speak you know are being contemplated within the t and these mechanisms are also part of what is called the model u s bilateral investment treaties that means in every time the u s is contemplating doing some kind of trade pact with another country mean follows the same kind of template and i say and so it is really kind of the u s version or the u s you know model for what it would like to see in all trade agreements and so we know that this is part and parcel of kind of the normal way that the u s would like to pacific and so you've got big countries like malaysia and singapore australia is a big one japan just joined but then there are also other countries for example in latin america such as ch well there have been rumors for a couple of years now about maybe a separate bilateral trade pact between the u s and china that would be extremely controversial but as you sort of mentioned before with respect to you know w specific pivot is the fact that china is so conspicuously absent from these you know this this massive regional trade pact is probably has something to do with the united states efforts to  encircle china so to speak in sort of an end economic way i think china is from press reports a bit peeved annoyed that they are not at the table you know yet the fact that there may be increasing economic ties between many of its asian neighbors and the u s getting stronger and stronger through you know an increasing trade and investment between these countries at the exclusion of china you know i think i think i mean it w reinforced their suspicions that they're being contained that they're being absolutely absolutely and and i think that you know it is very much the perception of you know the chinese central government that essentially their ascendancy within their region and their very very strong within the region as an economic powerhouse you know is being countered by this pacific pivot you know largely you know through the u s is leadership in the trans pacific partnership so how fast is is this moving i mean i know i have heard you know in san francisco a few summers ago there was a t p p negotiating session i was and i think san diego last summer and there was one there but how  it's hard to say exactly how fast the train is moving every year or so there are three or four negotiating around so that happen around the world there were you know there are about i think four so last year and some people might have noticed that in the state of the union for example  had given a shout out to the transpacific partnership and he also mentioned a new trade pact with between the u s in the e u as well and so you know that's of course a signal from at the highest level you know that he would like to get them moving there were some rumors that he wanted to even finish negotiations before he started the second term but obviously you know that hasn't happened and so there's a lot to you know there's a lot to work out and it's hard to it's hard to  friends of the earth i mean we have to now after we have to go we're i mean this is like another layer of of near liberal trade agendas i mean what what does it mean given the state of the earth now well i mean has huge ramifications in addition to these sort of policy implications of these expanding neoliberal trade agreements such as the ability for example as we talked about before the ability of multinational corporations to undo the efforts of governments to you know regulate in the public interest there are the obvious implications for you know what goods and services get to be you know are you know get to increase so to speak you know in sort of in production as a result of you know more trade ties between countries and so for example in the united states there are a lot of efforts among grassroots environmental organizations to really get a handle on the expansion of the natural gas and fracking and you know all of the environmental and social impacts that it you know that expansion of natural gas has well if for example there is a negotiation that includes the u s and japan we can be pretty sure that japan will want a lot more s based liquid natural gas because you know an exporter no we're trying to become we are we are and there are reportedly you know these plans to maybe export something like forty five percent of our domestic production sands exactly or the other thing is coal that's another sort of front on which u s environmentalist have been actually quite quite successful in terms of trying to shut down you know the expansion in the build out of u s coal you know e p a you know recently came out with some good regulations on mercury emissions and that has really kind of dampened the u s coal industry at least in terms of domestic production for domestic burning and other coal now where does the coal industry u s coal industry go then well it starts looking abroad it starts looking at you know markets like china for example and markets like indonesia and other countries which are coal hungry and if we have you know a boom in u s coal exports which you know everything is trying to line up that way right and we've got lots of new coal export terminals that are being built in the pacific northwest you know we've got the you know all of these you know i didn't know that we get it's a really really you know some really huge fights for these massive coal export terminals  river basin which is a powder river basin is sort of up like in wyoming and to the west you know this entire area which is actually one of it's a massive coal deposit which hasn't been fully exploited yet and if it does it will be mostly for export to asia right and to boot the you know the kinds of royalties that coal companies might need to pay in order to exploit all that coal is our poultry and so it's almost like a subsidized you know from the from a from a federal standpoint it's almost like a you know federal policy to promote the you know we're seeing almost a federal policy to do you mean what's what's the the well but the subsidy is that the royalties for a powder river basin coal are so low that it is laughingly under market i mean so if you were a coal miner in the united states and you  interested in my and mining on public lands and getting the call out you know you you don't have to pay very much so when we say we're giving this stuff away it's like give this big giveaway to the coal industry and most of that is not again for domestic you know use in in coal fired power plants of course there is still a lot of that but that's not going to be sort of where the future is it's really to export so if we can look at you know the sort of trends of kind of very heavy fossil exports out of the united states and it's kind of destination markets especially in asia we can see the t p play a really important role in facilitating you know that kind of try can see it playing the role in you know consolidating a relationship that's based on natural resource exploitation give away you know subsidies to big corporations and so on  if you have to if we you know get rid of this this t p p how do you in vision relationship among pacific communities and in particular u s china relationship if if we're not shipping each other coal and cars and chopsticks or all you know whatever the different goods might be what should the nature of our relationships be based on how do you think about that well you know it's  i think i think it's one of the big questions sort of you know of our time and i think that there's you know there are lots of people who would like to imagine you know a pacific community that is based more on sort of you know mutual relationship and respect understanding culture you know kind of the you know trade and commerce and culture for example you know that would promote more you know mutual understanding of the you know different societies rather than a kind of a market of stuff of cheap throwaway stuff on the one hand and really carbon intensive stuff on the other hand right to sort of re imagine that because we've had th pacific commerce for centuries we have just not of the scale no right it's not like it shouldn't exist it's what what's the nature of that right well and you know it's really interesting because i mean  there is to a certain extent you know a natural resource a race or grab you know fourth sort of the last cheap viable natural resources you know on this earth right i mean we as a society as a global society are reaching our ecological limits you know the easy to find you know gas the easy to find easy to mine coal the easy to get oil you know all of the a lot of that has been tapped already you know what's left you know because we haven't yet you know transitions our economies is the you know are the natural resources that are in hard to get places technically very difficult to extract you know politically you know  maybe you know unstable areas in front here areas frontier forests you know in the places where indigenous peoples you know enforce people's live you know more and more i think we do see kind of this race towards you know getting natural resources and i mean this is where you know kind of the china you know this is where china figures and i think very prominently certainly in the minds of countries like the u s perceive themselves they project u s power as the protector of the commons as if china is you know the grabber of everything and it's up to the u s to unilaterally enforce you know the trade routes and the access to resources so that you know any multinational can exploit it not just china is probably chevron or or some other u s based corporation but but it is you know the cast themselves of this role as as global protector  resource of the global commons is how we hear them talking about it as if china is not interested in protecting the global commons itself well and i think that i mean and a lot of kind of the u s sort of china watchers you know will  really point to something called china's going out policy and this is what this is this is the economic component of china's foreign policy and the going out policy actually is an explicit  exhortation from the central government and it was to both chinese multinational corporations tiny's banks you know as well as to you know different government agencies to expand chinese corporate presence abroad and mostly not all but i mean largely in order to procure a natural resources so as to be able to fuel china's continued economic growth and i mean so so there are kind of very very sort of clear policy signals from beijing that you know why what they are interested in you know when they for example provide money through their export import bank when they you know or their development banks etc overview is that and this is something i think is important to remember is that because i mean china's economic development model is one of being the factory floor for the world still even though they're trying to you know transition out of that you know  i read somewhere that you know well you take a step back the the central the communist party is hold in china political hold in china is strong and yet tenuous at the same time you know there are everybody has probably heard of you know the fact that there are massive inequalities within the country you know between those that are prosperous especially along the eastern coast and those that you know have been left behind so to speak you know and unemployment is a huge huge concern and that is one of the main jobs that the central government is supposed to provide employment right and i read somewhere  that if china's rate of g d p growth like goes down by i think something like ten percent or half a percent that means one hundred fifty million people that are unemployed or underemployed you know so the real political necessity for the central government for the party in china to provide jobs and ensure that growth you know continues apace you know is an existential political question for that you know for that one party system they really do have to deliver it and everybody revolutions before that yeah exactly very very wary of it right and if they don't have the iron to make the steel if they don't have the timber to you know for their construction if they don't have the minerals you know to produce you know there's all this stuff that supposed to be the you know they're supposed to be the factory floor for the world then how is five thousand year old civilization the they do have a long they must know something about sustainability surviving that long and i know my experience seen them in the u n climate talks you know they're big  negotiating rival with the u s how are they going to split the global atmosphere china seems much more i don't want to see just motivated by the science of the melting glaciers of you know  the extreme weather in the i mean they are doing more than the us in terms of you know public investment in renewable energy in carbon intensity targets and and so on and so it's just quite a fascinating balance that there is it's a totally fascinating balance and it's interesting because if there is anything if there's anything that i've kind of come to realize about to studying and working on china related issues in the last several years is that you know if it's never one thing or another it's always both things happening in extreme measures and that once and so at the same time you can have china you know  head and shoulders above the united states when it comes to their investment in for example renewable energy and in solar and in all these efficiency technologies at the same time they still have something like six hundred gigawatts of new coal fired power that are going to come on in the next five years and that's twice the installed capacity of the united states coal all right called fire power so poor things happen you know in extremes you know simultaneously and at the same time you know you've  got you know this incredible you know growth juggernaut that the party has to keep going i mean you have you know international headlines that you know were made earlier this year when the air pollution in beijing got so bad that they're literally went off the charts and there was no sort of way to chart look how bad it was right so you know i think that the central government knows it isn't being more it's getting more and more acutely aware of environmental crisis you know that is unfolding in their country at the same time you know and doing things to curb it at the same time they're they're totally working at cross purposes with themselves so it's always i think in my opinion hard to you know hard to boil it down you know to one pithy simple analysis when it comes to that country well we'll give you a second shot when you come to speak at the international forum on