The unimportance and importance of absence

US President Barack Obama was absent from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Indonesia on October 7 this year as he sat at home to deal with the bipartisan budget confrontation. The media and commentators have hyped: the United States is no good, the so-called "return to the Asia-Pacific" in the past two years is just a pretense, and China's economic and trade investment in the region, the real money and silver, is the strength.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who represented Obama at the meeting, responded: The political stalemate in Washington is temporary, and the "rebalancing" of Asia is an established policy that will not change. It is not the first time that US domestic fiscal problems have affected foreign policy and international image. In 1995, when the U.S. Congress fell into confrontation over the budget, Clinton, then the president of the United States, gave up attending the APEC meeting in Osaka.

In the past 18 years, the U.S. position in Asia has undergone tremendous changes. It is a tacit fact that the U.S. supports Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam in territorial disputes in the East China Sea and the South China Sea to fight against China. If political and military, the global layout of the United States has not changed, Obama's absence does have some economic impact. After 19 rounds of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the United States actively promoted in 2006, it was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013. At a critical moment, Obama obviously did not put this agreement at the top of the list, perhaps reflecting the White House. He believes that even if the discussed draft is submitted to Congress, the two parties in Congress are sharply opposed, and there is no hope of passing it. Besides, the agreement involves intellectual property rights, Internet rules, agriculture and industrial fields. The entire discussion process is extremely opaque, and there are no opposition members of the two parties. few.

The TPP did not invite China to participate, and some said it was an ABC agreement—All But China—that deliberately excluded China. In his speech at APEC, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that he would promote free trade. He pointed out that China has become the largest trading partner of many Asian countries. In the next five years, China's total imports will reach 10 trillion US dollars. benefit the Asian economy. It seems that China is not participating in the TPP, but the target is China. As at the wedding banquet, there is one less of a couple, and the absent one will attract more attention.

The APEC Leaders Summit is originally a tea party-style networking. The author has interviewed and reported on this meeting several times. Everyone jokes that these four letters represent A PerfectExcuse to Chat—a suitable excuse for chatting. The communiqué at the end of the meeting has been negotiated and finalized by the foreign ministries of various countries before the meeting. The press conferences of some member states are of the nature of government public relations and have nothing new. In order to publish the article, everyone in the media was looking for "site tidbits", such as how the Sultan of Brunei, who relies on oil as his personal wealth, spent a lot of money, and the Japanese Prime Minister Hosokawa's Italian-style tailored suits. However, in the group photo of heads of state wearing Indonesian traditional clothes at the APEC meeting, the US representative was placed in a "side" position, which cannot be over-interpreted as a "side" station for US influence in the Asia-Pacific, not to mention that according to diplomatic etiquette, a secretary of state was in In terms of rank, it cannot be compared with the head of state. Even the representatives sent by the big countries can only stand on the edge of the second row, and it is not worth making a big fuss.

While the U.S. seeks to reach a free trade agreement that excludes China, U.S. businessmen still maintain fairly high profits in China, which are unmatched by other countries in the world. Immediately after the APEC summit, the US-China Business Council released the results of the latest member questionnaire, and 90% of the respondents admitted that operating in China is profitable. 61% of those returns exceeded the company's global average profit margin, or at least matched it.

China's economic slowdown, rising costs and long-standing problems have affected their views on the prospects of the Chinese market. Generally, operators think that they are unsatisfactory, but not pessimistic. They have the intention to increase investment in the next year. Still half, and 96% of members still see China as the target of their top five most important strategic investment plans.

Half of the business leaders who participated in the survey were in China, 45% were in the United States, and a few were scattered in other parts of Asia. Under the condition that multiple choices are allowed, 98% said that the goal of their operations in China is to target the vast Chinese domestic market, 21% use China as an export platform and export to other countries in the world, and only 8% are to supply the US market.

It is true that U.S. companies also complained by answering the questionnaire: problems accumulated over time, such as applying for licenses, difficulties at the central, provincial and local levels, market access, non-national treatment, The government has formulated laws and regulations, and its decision-making is not transparent. Not only has there been no improvement, but there are even signs of deterioration. The slowdown in economic growth has intensified competition, not only with other multinational companies, but also with special treatment of state-owned and private companies.

Although American businessmen's criticism of China is not unreasonable, in all fairness, China's market is more open than many Asian countries. At the beginning of October, Wal-Mart broke up with Bharti Enterprises, its Indian partner, which has been working together for six years, due to the restriction of foreign investment in India. Japan and South Korea also have more barriers to market access than China. The strength of these American companies on the front lines of trade is more important than the assumptions made by politicians behind closed doors. China's economic transformation, focusing on domestic demand, has unleashed the potential of a huge market. The US deliberately excludes China when it leads the establishment of regional free trade partners, which can only drive other countries in the region to seek independent free trade agreements with China. China has reached an agreement with South Korea to sign a free trade agreement at an early date.

The strong wind arises at the end of Qingping, and China has to be alert to external changes at any time and seek active participation. Sino-US trade relations are still the main axis in Asia. However, when the general environment changes and there is too much noise, the most important thing is to recognize the long-term development. Although there is a saying that the information conveyed by a photo is better than the expression of 1,000 words, but It is not advisable to over-interpret it. The super-powerful imagination has given too many political and economic meanings, which will eventually become mediocre. Therefore, a photo of an APEC family portrait is not enough to be regarded as a turning point in the change of the regional pattern.

By the way, in the US-China Business Council's questionnaire survey, the importance of RMB exchange rate appreciation ranks at the bottom of all topics. It is obviously normal for companies to deal with and hedge foreign exchange risks. The "manipulator | RMB exchange rate" mentioned this time may not need to be said any more. It is worth noting that concerns about network security jumped from 23rd to 14th within a year.