BORDERLESS ASEAN: Better teamwork

Southeast Asia's borders are eroding as the region's politicians look to deepen integration and boost their economies. Direct aggregate foreign investment in Asean in 2013 surpassed China's, nearly half a century after the political and economic organization was founded. Tariff cuts have lifted regional trade volume, which has increased by 270% in the last decade. That figure is likely to rise further as leaders across the region ready for the launch, by the end of next year, of the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Economic Community.

     People, companies and cash are flowing through the region at an unprecedented rate. Direct investment among association members grew more than fivefold over the decade to 2012, as infrastructure projects have helped enhance mobility, and ambitious businesses have embarked on regionwide projects to increase their customer bases. What are the coming highs and lows of integration? Read on...

Asean Economic Community all set to bring the neighborhood together

TETSUYA IGUCHI, Editor-in-chief, Nikkei Editorial Headquarters for Asia

BANGKOK -- Singaporean and Malaysian leaders agreed April 7 to soon launch the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Railway project. It is scheduled for completion in 2020.

Cars await loading at Laem Chabang, Thailand's biggest port.

     The line will connect the two international cities, around 300km apart, in only 90 minutes. Construction costs, excluding land purchases, are estimated at up to $30 billion. The two countries plan to simplify immigration procedures for commuters by the time the project is completed.

     A total of 13.17 million visits were made to Malaysia from Singapore in 2013, up about 20% from five years earlier, while the number heading the other way doubled to 1.28 million. An estimated 400,000 Malaysians work in Singapore. The flow of people between the two countries will sharply increase if the rail line is completed.

     The project "will make a tremendous difference to the psychology of our people and to the overall interrelationship and cooperation between the two countries," Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.

     Moves to facilitate the cross-border transfer of people, goods and capital to promote economic development are spreading within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The Strait of Malacca to the west of the Malay Peninsula lies midway between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. A key junction for east-west trade, the strait has now drawn attention as a strategic link between Malaysia and Indonesia.

     In 1996, then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad proposed to Indonesian President Suharto that the two countries build a 50km bridge over the Strait of Malacca. The proposed project to link the countries, which stumbled as a result of the Asian currency crisis, is again emerging under the initiative of a private Malaysian company called Strait of Malacca Partners. The company envisions building an undersea tunnel connecting Malacca State with the Indonesian island of Sumatra, said Managing Director Lim Sue Beng.

    The project is estimated to cost $193 billion, which is expected to take 80 years to recover the cost through revenue generated by the operation of the tunnel. It is necessary therefore "to get a consensus from many people from both Malaysian and Indonesian sides," said Datuk Seri Idris Haron, chief minister of Malacca State, who still thinks the tunnel is a good idea. If it is built, it would be another success for bringing Asean nations closer together. Malaysia, with a gross domestic product of more than $10,000 per capita, is the third-wealthiest nation in Asean. And 3 million Indonesians are estimated to work and live in Malaysia.

Upscaling

Tenaga Nasional, the biggest electric power company in Malaysia, is undertaking feasibility studies jointly with Indonesia's state-run electricity supplier PLN and coal company Bukit Asam to lay a 50km undersea cable across the Strait of Malacca to connect the two countries' grids.

     Indonesia plans to build a coal-fired power plant in Sumatra's Riau Province and sell electricity to Malaysia. Under the plan, Indonesia will sell electricity from coal-rich Sumatra to a power hungry Malaysia. Rapid industrialization means Malaysia needs daytime electricity, and Sumatra will receive power from across the strait at night, when its energy consumption increases.

     Countries and businesses cannot ignore the upscaling effect of dismantling national boundaries.

     The port of Laem Chabang, Thailand's biggest trading port, is 80km southeast of Bangkok. It is always busy, as it exclusively handles automobile exports from the country. In 2013, 1.11 million vehicles were shipped from Laem Chabang, up by a factor of about 4.8 over the past decade. "Shipments may exceed the port's current capacity of 1.5 million vehicles per year in or after 2017," Yutaka Miyaji, president of NYK Line (Thailand), said.

     Moves to reduce tariffs within Asean are a boon for Laem Chabang. Six member countries have already phased out tariffs for automobiles to zero, effective from 2010. The remaining four, including Vietnam, are required to follow suit by 2018.

     Indonesia, which is emerging as a major Asean auto producer, has no intention of playing second fiddle to Thailand. At a May 21-23 World Economic Forum meeting in Manila, Indonesian Minister of Trade Muhammad Lutfi said automakers operating in Indonesia, such as Toyota Motor, Honda Motor and Mitsubishi Motors, will double their output.

     "We are going to be a source of production in the region," Lutfi jokingly told those on the stage, including the Philippine and Malaysian trade ministers. "We are going to export traffic jams from Jakarta."

     If transportation time and cost in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar are to be reduced to levels seen in Singapore, which has the most efficient system in Asean, benefits could be significant. According to the Asian Foundation report, commodity exports from Cambodia to Thailand and Vietnam will increase 30% from current levels, and those from Malaysia and Myanmar to Thailand by 10%.

Worries

Of course there are some concerns over hasty integration. "If you combined the top three (banks) -- BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands), BDO Unibank and Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company -- we're only as big as Bangkok Bank, and that is No. 7," said BDO President Nestor Tan in May 27 parliamentary testimony. "That's how small we are."

     Filipino workers in Singapore called for holding an event to celebrate their country's Independence Day through social network Facebook, but Singaporean criticism led to the withdrawal of the plan. This shows that worker migration in Asean will meet local protest.

     Historically speaking, however, Asean's only choice is to integrate. Foreign ministers from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore signed the founding Asean Declaration in Bangkok on Aug. 8, 1967. Relations among Southeast Asian nations were turbulent at that time. For example, tensions were boiling between Indonesia and Malaysia a few years before the declaration, and Singapore got independent from Malaysia in 1965.

     The East-West confrontation, symbolized by the Vietnam War, prompted Southeast Asian nations to pursue regional solidarity. After signing the declaration, then Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik described Asean as "a region which can stand on its own feet, strong enough to defend itself against any negative influence from outside the region."

     Nearly 50 years have since passed. At the Asean summit held May 11 in Myanmar's capital of Naypyitaw, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung criticized China by name for the launch of oil drilling in the South China Sea. "In face of this extremely serious situation, Vietnam requests that Asean strengthen solidarity and unity," he said.

     China's rapid rise as an economic and military superpower seems to urge the Asean countries to pull down their borders faster.

The Holy Roman Empire Corporate controlled US Prepares to Overthrow Malaysian Government

Key to encircling & containing China, Empire US CORPORATIONS sets proxies in motion for color revolution in Malaysian streets. 

Image: US-proxy Anwar Ibrahim leads a Bersih rally in Malaysia. While Bersih has attempted to claim it is "independent" and simply pursusing "fair and clean elections," it is clearly a vehicle for returning Anwar Ibrahim back into power. Additionally, Bersih shares the same ties to the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as its crypto-leader Anwar Ibrahim - representing a dangerous and seditious conflict of interest.

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May 15, 2013 (AltThaiNews) - US-funded opposition fronts have vowed to overthrow the Malaysian government via disruptive and potentially violent street protests in the wake of general elections that saw their leader Anwar Ibrahim soundly defeated despite massive support from Western media, NGOs, and direct government intervention. Free Malaysia Today (FMT) reported in their article, "‘BN will be toppled this year’," that:

Pro-Pakatan Rakyat groups have vowed to overthrow the Barisan Nasional government this year through a massive street rally.

Speakers at a forum held yesterday unanimously agreed that waiting for five years until the next
general election was too long, and vowed to overthrow BN this year through “force”.

 FMT also added that:

Electoral watchdog group Bersih 2.0 steering committee member  Hishamuddin Rais pointed out that it was useless to take their unhappiness to the courts as he claimed the justice system was being controlled by the government.

“That is why we must take to the streets. We have to come out. What Najib likes is wrong, and what he doesn’t like is what we have to do,” he said.

“We will mobilise a big group and rally on the streets. This is not a threat, this is a promise,” he stressed.

Bersih, of course, is a US State Department-funded opposition front aimed to bolster US-proxy candidate Anwar Ibrahim, formerly of the IMF and World Bank, and a frequent visitor to the insidious National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington D.C. It is in fact, NED that funds Bersih through its subsidiary, the National Democratic Institute (NDI).

The Malaysian Insider reported on June 27, 2011 that Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevassan:

"...admitted to Bersih receiving some money from two US organisations — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) — for other projects, which she stressed were unrelated to the July 9 march." 

A visit to the NDI website revealed indeed that funding and training had been provided by the US organization - before NDI took down the information and replaced it with a more benign version purged entirely of any mention of Bersih. For funding Ambiga claims is innocuous, the NDI's rushed obfuscation of any ties to her organization suggests something far more sinister at play.






Photo: NDI's website before taking down any mention to Malaysia's Bersih movement. (click image to enlarge)

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In addition to Bersih, other faux-electoral monitors are also directly funded by the US government. While the Western media attempts to portray such organizations as "independent," the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, for example, is likewise funded directly by the US through NED.

Anwar Ibrahim himself was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1998, held lecturing positions at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was a consultant to the World Bank, and a panelist at the Neo-Con lined National Endowment for Democracy's "Democracy Award" and a panelist at a NED donation ceremony - the very same US organization funding and supporting Bersih and so-called "independent" election monitor Merdeka - paints a picture of an opposition running for office in Malaysia, not for the Malaysian people, but clearly for the corporate financier interests of Wall Street and London.

 Photo: Taken from the US National Endowment for Democracy's 2007 Democracy Award event held in Washington D.C., Anwar Ibrahim can be seen to the far left and participated as a "panelist." It is no surprise that NED is now subsidizing his bid to worm his way back into power in Malaysia. (click image to enlarge)

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Without a doubt, this premeditated sedition aimed at Malaysia's ruling government has been designed, funded, and directed from Washington on behalf of Wall Street and London, not by the Malaysian people on behalf of Malaysia's best interests.

The street protests conducted by Bersih have all the hallmarks of US-backed "color revolutions," and this recent attempt to overturn election results that do not favor an overt US-proxy, foreshadows the same destructive, divisive, violent, and regressive unrest that has plagued Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria after US-engineered uprisings have left each in turn destabilized, failed states overrun by extremists, dictators, and traitors many times worse than the governments activists sought to overthrow.

And with Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria in hindsight, will Malaysians fall into this same familiar trap? Whatever discontent Malaysians may have with the current government, it is all but assured Bersih and US-proxy candidate Anwar Ibrahim will compound perceived injustices while compromising Malaysia's political, social, and economic stability, and begin channeling Malaysia's resources and energy toward foreign interests and designs, particularly those involving the encirclement and containment of China.

An Alternative to the Tired Ploy of "Street Protests" 

For the average Malaysian seeking progress, a better bet than joining US-funded sedition would be to turn their attention toward organizing locally and focusing on pragmatic, rather than political, goals. Education, local economic development, health, and local infrastructure are all areas Malaysians, regardless of political affiliations, can work together on and improve regardless of who holds public office.

And while special interests, both foreign and domestic, can indeed hinder such progress, they do not make such progress impossible. What is certain, is that corruption amongst Malaysia's ruling party pales in comparison to that of Wall Street and London - and Malaysians will place themselves in the path of guaranteed destruction by inviting in the very people who dominated them before achieving a hard-won independence.

Democracy, in reality, is supposed to be a bottom-up exercise drawn from the grassroots. Bersih is clearly a vehicle for Anwar Ibrahim and his political machine - one whose message is funded, crafted, and declared from Anwar's political advisers and foreign backers, and disseminated across the movement - however cleverly "democratized" Bersih may attempt to appear.

Malaysians do not need a political party to improve education, to grow their own food, to develop business locally by leveraging technology, or to improve local infrastructure and strengthen local communities. The time being wasted to assist Anwar Ibrahim's worming back into political power at the cost of peace, stability, and prosperity could be better spent developing truly grassroots pragmatic power.

Real revolutions do not happen out on the streets - they are manifested in our schools, across industry, and within our communities. They are marked by pragmatism and true, enduring technological and socioeconomic progress - none of which are even promised by Bersih and Anwar Ibrahim's "People's Alliance."  If the people of Malaysia truly want "change," they are going to have to do it themselves by building local institutions that technologically and pragmatically solve real problems rather than simply craft slogans and campaign promises that merely pander to the concerns of the people. Following the flags of Bersih into the streets will  undoubtedly begin instability and division across Malaysian society that will jeopardize, not spur, real and very necessary pragmatic progress. 

America’s “Pivot to Asia” Threatens China: US Stages Show of Naval Force in South China Sea War Games

On October 25, 2013, the US Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS George Washington entered Manila Bay. At the head of Carrier Strike Group Five, the aircraft carrier had spent the past week sailing the disputed waters of the South China Sea, visiting various regional claimants.

Washington is seeking, through this show of military force in the region, to shore up its slipping diplomatic position in the wake of Obama’s absence from the Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summits in early October.

Obama canceled his travel to Southeast Asia to deal with the government shut down. His absence at the summits was seen as a clear indication in Asia of the declining economic and diplomatic power of Washington. Beijing seized upon the opportunity afforded by Obama’s no-show to conduct a ‘charm offensive’ in South East Asia. Prime Minister Xi Jinping and Premier Li Kejiang traveled throughout the region meeting with heads of state and dispensing economic largesse in the form lucrative new trade deals and investments.

Obama’s absence raised questions about the seriousness of the US ‘pivot’ to Asia, which includes the shifting of the majority of US forces to the Indo-Pacific in a calculated strategy to encircle China. Countries throughout the region, most notably the Philippines and Vietnam, have engaged in increasingly aggressive assertions of their claims to the South China Sea, spurred on by Washington’s pivot.

In the wake of the ASEAN summit, the bourgeoisie throughout the region were left uncertain if, in the event of conflict with China, Washington would be willing to intervene militarily, and further, if it could afford to.

Unable to match the economic hand-outs of Beijing, Washington is shoring up its diplomatic and political power in the region through the escalation of its military presence. Every stop of the Fifth Carrier strike group was directed to this end.

The USS George Washington heads Carrier Strike Group 5, which is the largest such group in the US Navy. It includes two guided missile cruisers, a destroyer, a supply ship and a fast attack submarine. There are over 6,000 military personnel on board the aircraft carrier alone.

On Sunday, the USS George Washington was 200 miles off the coast of Danang, Vietnam. According to the Huffington Post, “a group of high-ranking Vietnamese military officials was flown onto the carrier Sunday along with other Vietnamese government officials and the U.S. ambassador to the country.” The location is highly symbolic as Danang was a key US airforce base during the American war in Vietnam, and US aircraft conducted bombing runs over Vietnam and Laos from the airbase.
Commander of the George Washington airwing, Captain Ross Meyers told the visitors: “The strategic implications and importance of the waters of the South China Sea and the freedom of navigation is vital to both Vietnam and the United States.” ‘Freedom of navigation’ has long been the code phrase used to justify Washington’s military drive against China in the region.

It was announced that the destroyer, USS John McCain, would make a port call to Vietnam later in the week, where it would engage in joint training exercises. The exercises were also to include three ships from the Japanese so-called Self-Defense Forces.

It was also announced that a military delegation from Hanoi, led by Deputy Defence Minister Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh, would visit Washington on October 24 to conduct a ‘Defence Strategy dialogue.’

On Monday, General Vincent Brooks, Commanding General of the US Army in the Pacific, announced that the Pentagon was planning to hold the first-ever joint Army-Navy Maritime exercises in the Pacific theater. This move is a sharp escalation of Washington’s preparations for war against China. Brooks justified the move as “fitting” by citing the origins of US imperialism in the American war of conquest in the Philippines, saying, “the roots of our expeditionary experience in the Army were born in the Pacific.” Lieutenant Colonel Michael Donnelly, US Army Pacific spokesman further justified the joint Army-Navy exercises by saying: “The ground element of the Pacific rebalance is important to ensure the stability in the region.”

On Wednesday, the USS George Washington sailed to Malaysia. Sixteen ‘high-level’ Malaysian government officials were given a tour of the carrier, including Shakib Ahmad Shakir, deputy undersecretary of defense. The US defense attaché in Malaysia welcomed them to “1,100 feet of sovereign US Territory” while they sailed through the South China Sea and launched fighter jets.


The carrier group staged joint military and naval exercises with Malaysian forces.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein announced that Kuala Lumpur would be building a naval base on Bintulu in the South China Sea, just 60 miles from the disputed James Shoal where the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had staged amphibious landing drills earlier this year. The base will house Malaysian Marines who, it was announced, will receive support, training and expertise exchange from the US Marine Corps.

The Empire-controlled system administrators in the US job is to keep the insane military powers around the world whose real target is not China, Russia or any small countries—which are no threat at all to the British Empire—but America’s economic power and can-do legacy, inspired by the Roosevelt Administration—an operation from which America has never recovered. The main intention is to keep the United States in the State of bankruptcy. When this bankruptcy took place, the US Constitutional Republic was dissolved and replaced with a corporate democracy, social corporate fascism of the British Empire. They have been since 1933, trying to pay off a debt that the United States do not owe with a currency that makes the discharge of that false debt a mathematical impossibility.   

This bankruptcy, which can be considered nothing more than an international coup within the United States, was and is a complete fraud, perpetrated by the same international gangsters that accomplished the creation of the unconstitutional Federal Reserve.

Some prominent names among these international thieves are Rothschild, J.P Morgan, Prescott Bush, Henry Kissinger, George Soros and of course our good friends the Rockefellers and their Standard Oil, who are just the Jesuits agents. They control the media (that why you never heard about them), the education system (surprise?) and they try to control the internet too.

Washington has offered Kuala Lumpur the amphibious platform dock, USS Denver, after its decommission in 2014, and is also looking to sell Malaysia several AH-1Z Super Cobra attack helicopters, according to IHS Jane ’ s Defense Weekly .

On the same day, the Los Angeles-class, fast attack submarine USS Santa Fe docked at Changi naval base in Singapore, showcasing to members of the Singaporean Navy its littoral combat capabilities. Leading Singaporean government figures were also flown out to the USS George Washington.
On October 24, while sailing in the midst of the South China Sea from Malaysia to the Philippines, Rear Admiral Mark C. Montgomery, commander of the USS George Washington held a press conference with reporters from BBC, CNN, AFP, and other news agencies on the flag bridge with fighter jets taking off in the background.

The ‘pivot’ has led to “an increase in surface combatant presence here in the Western Pacific… so these [US] ships are spread throughout those areas,” he stated. “Having more ships gives us more presence. It allows us to have a greater force.” The ‘pivot’ is “gaining strength,” he said.
According to AFP, Montgomery stated that “US defence budget cuts and the recent 16-day partial US government shutdown have not affected his command.” He continued: “The strategic rebalance is continuing in earnest … We have sufficient funds for our operations.”

Asked by a reporter about what would happen in the event of “military conflict in the region,” Montgomery stated, “I think the fact that we’re here (now) says a lot whether or not we will be here if there was a crisis.”

Just arrived in Manila Bay, it is reported that the USS George Washington will be hosting several hundred leading Philippine government, military and business leaders.

On Friday, the PLA issued a press release announcing that Chinese military forces had sailed out the Bashi Channel into the Pacific and were staging the “first open-sea drill with maritime and air forces from all three of China’s fleets taking part.” According to the Global Times, the drills were conducted to prepare for “open-sea combat” to “safeguard national security and maritime interests.”

Fortune Times: LaRouche On Kra Canal Project

The following is a written interview with Lyndon LaRouche regarding his role in efforts to construct the Kra Canal in southern Thailand, conducted by the Chinese language journal Fortune Times, based in Singapore and circulated mainly in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Mr. LaRouche answered the questions on April 1, and the interview has been published in its May-June issue.

Perhaps coincidentally, some of the same Thai and Japanese institutions which participated with Mr. LaRouche in 1983 and 1984 in international conferences in Bangkok promoting the Kra Canal, are now calling for a similar conference to be held in the near future, this time including Chinese interests. Despite the current extreme turmoil in Thailand, such efforts are precisely the basis upon which to bring peoples and nations together around the common interests of mankind.

See LaRouchePAC's Kra Canal & The Development of Southeast Asia

The current global strategic situation can be defined as a fight between two systems: a dying Trans-Atlantic system in its death throes, which seeks to destroy and loot a Eurasian system which has begun to commit itself to true principles of progress, outlined in this video		Following upon the release of "Nuclear NAWAPA XXI: Gateway to the Fusion Economy," here we explore a case study featured in that report more in depth: the proposal to build a Kra Canal across Thailand, SEAWAPA project starting in Laos, two good candidates for construction using peaceful nuclear explosions. This is a real "Asia Pivot," typifying the concept of peace through development, contrary to the Obama Administration policy in the region.

SUBJECT: KRA CANAL PROJECT
April 1. 2014.
TO: Fortune Times (Singapore)
GENERAL REPLY TO QUESTION:

I do not have recent, explicit knowledge on China's interest in a canal through the Isthmus of Kra across the Thailand strip. From my active interest in this subject, during the course of the 1970-1980 interval, I do have specific, professional knowledge concerning the importance and feasibility of such undertaking, and its profound implications for the entirety of major neighboring regions such as, most prominently, China and India, but also the entire region of the China-India development process throughout the Pacific region generally.

1. Soon, the potential role of a well-developed Kra Canal must be among the presently best-known and most strategically important options in the underbelly of the Indian Ocean and closely related areas.

2. During a past period of my most excellent relations with Thailand, and of supporting actions pre-arranged, but disrupted between Thailand and Mitsubishi during that past time, the feasibility and rich benefits of the completion of the Kra Canal, were among the greatest potential benefits available throughout the region of the Western Pacific, and Indian Ocean waterways throughout all of Asia's coastal regions. I had enjoyed excellent practical relations with the nations immediately associated with that project at that time.

3. Until I was targeted for virtual political elimination, by British-imperial and Wall Street interests (on the issue of an SDI agreement between the Soviet government), until a pro-British interest gained access to the Soviet system's control, I had enjoyed often excellent cooperation with U.S. circles who had maintained close affinities with the tradition of President Franklin Roosevelt, as in opposition to enemies such as the infamous Dulles Brothers, who still tend to be represented by British-Empire-dominated interests, especially Wall Street branches of British imperial interests which have dominated the U.S. Presidency under the Bush-Cheney and Obama affinities to the British world empire today. The infamous "9-11" attack on the United States, which had been actually launched by Wall Street and British agencies through British-directed Saudi influences, remains a crucial strategic factor bearing on Asia's future presently, for this same reason.

Under the consequent circumstances, my active connections to relevant circles in East Asia have since been greatly reduced, but, my broader strategic understanding of the East-South Asia region persists. Respecting your interest in the matter of the implications of a Kra Canal development, my broad strategic-economic competence remains relevant today.

4. Divide the maritime region of East and South Asia into three principal categories: China, a giant; India, a giant; and the maritime connection, throughout Southeast Asia's maritime regions, today. Add the impact of such triadic maritime and related connections, to the physical-economic relations to the Americas to the East, and the Middle East's underbelly and Africa. Then, the potency of a Kra Canal development appears not only as an eminently feasible feature, but a strategical political-economic force for the planet.
That is sufficient to present the practical immediate, also, globally strategic considerations.

(a) The studies of the Thai government and Mitsubishi have demonstrated both the economic feasibility and awesome benefits of the completion of the Kra project. The immediate prospect of difficulties, is predominantly political, and that itself, specifically British-imperial manipulations of governmental and financial-economic interests. On the U.S.A. side, the sources to be regarded as hostile can be traced to the history of the Dulles Brothers and the Bush-Cheney-Obama, British imperial-controlled regimes (e.g., Wall Street) in the United States still today.

(b) From an engineering vantage-point, the project is probably the most feasible, most efficient, and relatively most beneficial measure for the entire underbelly of the Indian Ocean.
The most common opposition to the Kra Canal, from within that region itself, is located precisely in Singapore. The chief source of resistance from Singapore, is entirely, global, British-imperial military-strategic interests. The completion of the Kra Canal, is not technologically difficult, if and when we take into account the massively beneficial impact of the creation of such a project; it would be principally the British imperial-strategic interests in the entire Indian-Ocean region, which has long remained the principal obstacle to the Kra during modern times.

(c) The great boost to economic development of the South-Asia development, the massive economic advantage, and relative simplicity, of the undertaking, fulfillment, and exceptionally would be massive economic benefits such a canal represents for all of the nations of East and South Asia. There are two truly great nations in Asia: India, and the more populous China. The sheer volume of maritime trade between the two great nations of Asia, and their connections through the South Asia maritime regions, represents the potentially beneficial, and also efficient project for the entire region of the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, and the co-development of the major regions of Planet Earth as a whole. Water is still the most economically efficient mode of economic transport among the regions of the planet.

On Singapore as such, Singapore itself, when freed from British strategic imperatives, will benefit far more from the success of the Kra Canal development, than that development would ever bring without the development of the Kra!

(d) The planet as a whole, is now entering both the feasibility, and indispensably leading role represented by a Helium-3 enhanced thermonuclear fusion, development program.
Under such development of Helium-3, augmented developments of thermonuclear fusion modes, the access of mankind to control and exploitation of the immediate vicinity of the Earth orbit comes rather quickly to a mankind which inhabits Earth, but exerts increasingly efficient control over both the defense of Earth against menacing factors in the vicinity of the Earth orbit, and also the incorporation of the advantages from such developments for the development of human residence on Earth and also operations, on behalf of Earth, from nearby, and even, more distant objectives.

It is the accelerated increase of mankind's power to act productively on, and for Earth, and that in the vicinity of Earth, which best serves the greater interest for all mankind, Singapore included.

Thank you for your question.

By Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Empire Corporates US "Pivot" Toward Asia Trips in Malaysia

Image: Despite the Empire US Corporations mobilizing the summation of its media power and pouring millions of dollars into the opposition party, including the creation and perpetuation of fake-NGOs such as Bersih and the Merdeka Center, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak sailed to a comfortable victory in this year's general elections. The cheap veneer has begun peeling away from America's "democracy promotion" racket, leaving its proxies exposed and frantic, and America's hegemonic ambitions across Asia in serious question. 

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Empire Wall Street and London's hegemonic ambitions in Asia, centered around installing proxy regimes across Southeast Asia and using the supranational ASEAN bloc to encircle and contain China, suffered a serious blow this week when Western-proxy and Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's party lost in general elections.

While Anwar Ibrahim's opposition party, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) or "People's Alliance," attempted to run on an anti-corruption platform, its campaign instead resembled verbatim attempts by the West to subvert governments politically around the world, including most recently in Venezuela, and in Russia in 2012.

Just as in Russia where so-called "independent" election monitor GOLOS turned out to be fully funded by the US State Department through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Malaysia's so-called election monitor, the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, is likewise funded directly by the US through NED. Despite this, Western media outlets, in pursuit of promoting the Western-backed People's Alliance, has repeatedly referred to Merdeka as "independent."  The BBC in its article, "Malaysia election sees record turnout," lays out the well-rehearsed cries of "stolen elections" used by the West to undermine the legitimacy of polls it fears its proxy candidates may lose - with  the US-funded Merdeka Center cited in attempts to bolster these claims. Their foreign funding and compromised objectivity is never mentioned (emphasis added) :

Allegations of election fraud surfaced before the election. Some of those who voted in advance told BBC News that indelible ink - supposed to last for days - easily washed off.

"The indelible ink can be washed off easily, with just water, in a few seconds," one voter, Lo, told BBC News from Skudai.

Another voter wrote: "Marked with "indelible ink" and voted at 10:00. Have already cleaned off the ink by 12:00. If I was also registered under a different name and ID number at a neighbouring constituency, I would be able to vote again before 17:00!"

The opposition has also accused the government of funding flights for supporters to key states, which the government denies.

Independent pollster Merdeka Center has received unconfirmed reports of foreign nationals being given IDs and allowed to vote.

However, an election monitoring organization funded by a foreign government which openly seeks to remove the current ruling party from Malaysia in favor of long-time Wall Street servant Anwar Ibrahim is most certainly not "independent."

The ties between Anwar Ibrahim's "People's Alliance" and the US State Department don't end with the Merdeka Center, but continue into the opposition's street movement, "Bersih." Claiming to fight for "clean and fair" elections, Bersih in reality is a vehicle designed to mobilize street protests on behalf of Anwar's opposition party. Bersih's alleged leader, Ambiga Sreenevasan, has admitted herself that her organization has received cash directly from the United States via the National Endowment for Democracy's National Democratic Institute (NDI), and convicted criminal George Soros' Open Society.

The Malaysian Insider reported on June 27, 2011 that Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevassan:

"...admitted to Bersih receiving some money from two US organisations — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) — for other projects, which she stressed were unrelated to the July 9 march." 

A visit to the NDI website revealed indeed that funding and training had been provided by the US organization - before NDI took down the information and replaced it with a more benign version purged entirely of any mention of Bersih. For funding Ambiga claims is innocuous, the NDI's rushed obfuscation of any ties to her organization suggests something far more sinister at play.






Photo: NDI's website before taking down any mention to Malaysia's Bersih movement. (click image to enlarge)

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The substantial, yet carefully obfuscated support the West has lent Anwar should be of no surprise to those familiar with Anwar's history. That Anwar Ibrahim himself was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1998, held lecturing positions at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was a consultant to the World Bank, and a panelist at the Neo-Con lined National Endowment for Democracy's "Democracy Award" and a panelist at a NED donation ceremony - the very same US organization funding and supporting Bersih and so-called "independent" election monitor Merdeka - paints a picture of an opposition running for office in Malaysia, not for the Malaysian people, but clearly for the corporate financier interests of Wall Street and London.

 Photo: Taken from the US National Endowment for Democracy's 2007 Democracy Award event held in Washington D.C., Anwar Ibrahim can be seen to the far left and participated as a "panelist." It is no surprise that NED is now subsidizing his bid to worm his way back into power in Malaysia. (click image to enlarge)

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In reality, Bersih's leadership along with Anwar and their host of foreign sponsors are attempting to galvanize the very real grievances of the Malaysian people and exploit them to propel themselves into power. While many may be tempted to suggest that "clean and fair elections" truly are Bersih and Anwar's goal, and that US funding via NED's NDI and convicted criminal, billionaire bankster George Soros' Open Society are entirely innocuous, a thorough examination of these organizations, how they operate, and their admitted agenda reveals the proverbial cliff Anwar and Bersih are leading their followers and the nation of Malaysia over.

As Bersih predictably mobilizes in the streets on behalf of Anwar's opposition party in the wake of their collective failure during Malaysia's 2013 general elections, it is important for Malaysians to understand the true nature of the Western organizations funding their attempts to politically undermine the ruling party and divide Malaysians against each other, and exactly why this is being done in the greater context of US hegemony in Asia.

Anwar & Bersih's US State Department Backers

The US State Department's NED and NDI are most certainly not benevolent promoters of democracy and freedom. A quick look at NED's board of directors reveals a milieu of corporate-fascists and warmongers:

• William Galston: Brookings Institution (board of trustees can be found on page 35 here).
• Moises Naim: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (corporate funding here).
• Robert Miller: corporate lawyer.
• Larry Liebenow: US Chamber of Commerce (a chief proponent of SOPA, ACTA, and CISPA), Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).
• Anne-Marie Slaughter: US State Department, Council on Foreign Relations (corporate members here), director of Citigroup, McDonald's Corporation, and Political Strategies Advisory Group.
• Richard Gephardt: US Representative, Boeing lobbyist, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Ameren Corp, and Waste Management Inc lobbyist, corporate consultant, consultant & now director of Ford Motor Company, supporter of the military invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.
• Marilyn Carlson Nelson: CEO of Carlson, director of Exxon Mobil.
• Stephen Sestanovich: US State Department, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, CFR.
• Judy Shelton: director of Hilton Hotels Corporation & Atlantic Coast Airlines.
• Francis Fukuyama: Neo-Con, pro-war, pro-hegmonic PNAC signatory
• Zalmay Khalilzad: Neo-Con, pro-war, pro-hegmonic PNAC signatory
• Will Marshall: Neo-Con, pro-war, pro-hegmonic PNAC signatory
• Vin Weber: Neo-Con, pro-war, pro-hegmonic PNAC signatory

Does Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Exxon, the SOPA, ACTA, CISPA-sponsoring US Chamber of Commerce, and America's warmongering Neo-Con establishment care about promoting democracy in Malaysia? Or in expanding their corporate-financier interests in Asia under the guise of promoting democracy? Clearly the latter. 

The NDI, which Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevasan herself admits funds her organization, is likewise chaired by an unsavory collection of corporate fascist interests.

Some select members include:

• Robin Carnahan: Formally of the Export-Import Bank of the United States where she "explored innovative ways to help American companies increase their sale of goods and services abroad." The NDI's meddling in foreign nations, particularly in elections on behalf of pro-West candidates favoring free-trade, and Carnahan's previous ties to a bank that sought to expand corporate interests overseas constitutes an alarming conflict of interests. 
• Richard Blum: An investment banker with Blum Capital, CB Richard Ellis. Engaged in war profiteering along side the Neo-Con infested Carlyle Group, when both acquired shares in EG&G which was then awarded a $600 million military contract during the opening phases of the Iraq invasion. 
• Bernard W. Aronson:  Founder of ACON Investments. Prior to that, he was an adviser to Goldman Sachs, and serves on the boards of directors of Fifth & Pacific Companies, Royal Caribbean International, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, and Chroma Oil & Gas, Northern Tier Energy. Aronson is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which in turn represents the collective interests of some of the largest corporations on Earth.  
• Sam Gejdenson: NDI's profile claims Gejdenson is "in charge of"  Sam Gejdenson International, which proclaims on its website "Commerce Without Borders," or in other words, big-business monopolies via free-trade. In his autobiographical profile, he claims to have promoted US exports as a Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. Here is yet another case of conflicting interests between NDI's meddling in foreign politics and board members previously involved in "promoting US exports."
• Nancy H. Rubin: CFR member. 
• Vali Nasr: CFR member and a senior fellow at the big-oil, big-banker Belfer Center at Harvard.
• Rich Verma: A partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP - an international corporate and governmental legal firm representing for Verma, a multitude of conflicting interests and potential improprieties. Setptoe & Johnson is active in many of the nations the NDI is operating in, opening the door for manipulation on both sides to favor the other.
• Lynda Thomas: A private investor, formally a senior manager/CPA at Deloitte Haskins & Sells in New York, and Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte in London. Among her clients were international banks. 
• Maurice Tempelsman: Chairman of the board of directors of Lazare Kaplan International Inc., the largest cutter and polisher of “ideal cut” diamonds in the United States. Also senior partner at Leon Tempelsman & Son, involved in mining, investments and business development and minerals trading in Europe, Russia, Africa, Latin America, Canada and Asia. Yet another immense potential for conflicting interests, where Tempelsman stands to directly gain financially and politically by manipulating foreign governments via the NDI.
• Elaine K. Shocas: President of Madeleine Albright, Inc., a private investment firm. She was chief of staff to the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations during Madeleine Albright's tenure as Secretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nation, illustrating a particularly dizzying "revolving door" between big-government and big-business. 
• Madeleine K. Albright: Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm - directly affiliated with fellow NDI board member Elaine Shocas, representing an incestuous business/government relationship with overt conflicts of interest. Albright infamously stated that sanctions against Iraq which directly led to the starvation and death of half a million children "was worth it."   

The average Malaysian, disenfranchised with the ruling government as they may be, cannot possibly believe these people are funding and propping up clearly disingenuous NGOs in direct support of a compromised Anwar Ibrahim, for the best interests of Malaysia.

The end game for the US with an Anwar Ibrahim/People's Alliance-led government, is a Malaysia that capitulates to both US free trade schemes and US foreign policy. In Malaysia's case, this will leave the extensive economic independence achieved since escaping out from under British rule, gutted, while the nation's resources are steered away from domestic development and toward a proxy confrontation with China, just as is already being done in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.

Stitching ASEAN Together with Proxy Regimes to Fight China 

Image: Lemuel Gulliver on the island of Lilliput, having been overtaken while asleep by ropes and stakes by the diminutive but numerous Lilliputians. Western corporate-financier interests envision organizing Southeast Asia into a supranational bloc, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), to use the smaller nations as a combined front to "tie down" China in a similar manner. Unlike in the story "Gulliver's Travels," China may well break free of its binds and stomp the Lilliputian leaders flat for their belligerence. 

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That the US goal is to use Malaysia and other Southeast Asian nations against China is not merely speculation. It is the foundation of a long-documented conspiracy dating back as far as 1997, and reaffirmed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as recently as 2011.

In 1997,  Fortune 500-funded (page 19) Brookings Institution policy scribe Robert Kagan penned, "What China Knows That We Don't: The Case for a New Strategy of Containment," which spells out the policy Wall Street and London were already in the process of implementing even then, albeit in a somewhat more nebulous manner. In his essay, Kagan literally states (emphasis added):

The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. And it is poorly suited to the needs of a Chinese dictatorship trying to maintain power at home and increase its clout abroad. Chinese leaders chafe at the constraints on them and worry that they must change the rules of the international system before the international system changes them.

Here, Kagan openly admits that the "world order," or the "international order," is simply American-run global hegemony, dictated by US interests. These interests, it should be kept in mind, are not those of the American people, but of the immense corporate-financier interests of the Anglo-American establishment. Kagan continues (emphasis added):

In truth, the debate over whether we should or should not contain China is a bit silly. We are already containing China -- not always consciously and not entirely successfully, but enough to annoy Chinese leaders and be an obstacle to their ambitions. When the Chinese used military maneuvers and ballistic-missile tests last March to intimidate Taiwanese voters, the United States responded by sending the Seventh Fleet. By this show of force, the U.S. demonstrated to Taiwan, Japan, and the rest of our Asian allies that our role as their defender in the region had not diminished as much as they might have feared. Thus, in response to a single Chinese exercise of muscle, the links of containment became visible and were tightened.

The new China hands insist that the United States needs to explain to the Chinese that its goal is merely, as [Robert] Zoellick writes, to avoid "the domination of East Asia by any power or group of powers hostile to the United States." Our treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia, and our naval and military forces in the region, aim only at regional stability, not aggressive encirclement.

But the Chinese understand U.S. interests perfectly well, perhaps better than we do. While they welcome the U.S. presence as a check on Japan, the nation they fear most, they can see clearly that America's military and diplomatic efforts in the region severely limit their own ability to become the region's hegemon. According to Thomas J. Christensen, who spent several months interviewing Chinese military and civilian government analysts, Chinese leaders worry that they will "play Gulliver to Southeast Asia's Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes."

Indeed, the United States blocks Chinese ambitions merely by supporting what we like to call "international norms" of behavior. Christensen points out that Chinese strategic thinkers consider "complaints about China's violations of international norms" to be part of "an integrated Western strategy, led by Washington, to prevent China from becoming a great power.

What Kagan is talking about is maintaining American preeminence across all of Asia and producing a strategy of tension to divide and limit the power of any single player vis-a-vis Wall Street and London's hegemony. Kagan would continue (emphasis added):

The changes in the external and internal behavior of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s resulted at least in part from an American strategy that might be called "integration through containment and pressure for change."

Such a strategy needs to be applied to China today. As long as China maintains its present form of government, it cannot be peacefully integrated into the international order. For China's current leaders, it is too risky to play by our rules -- yet our unwillingness to force them to play by our rules is too risky for the health of the international order. The United States cannot and should not be willing to upset the international order in the mistaken belief that accommodation is the best way to avoid a confrontation with China.

We should hold the line instead and work for political change in Beijing. That means strengthening our military capabilities in the region, improving our security ties with friends and allies, and making clear that we will respond, with force if necessary, when China uses military intimidation or aggression to achieve its regional ambitions. It also means not trading with the Chinese military or doing business with firms the military owns or operates. And it means imposing stiff sanctions when we catch China engaging in nuclear proliferation.

A successful containment strategy will require increasing, not decreasing, our overall defense capabilities. Eyre Crowe warned in 1907 that "the more we talk of the necessity of economising on our armaments, the more firmly will the Germans believe that we are tiring of the struggle, and that they will win by going on." Today, the perception of our military decline is already shaping Chinese calculations. In 1992, an internal Chinese government document said that America's "strength is in relative decline and that there are limits to what it can do." This perception needs to be dispelled as quickly as possible.

Kagan's talk of "responding" to China's expansion is clearly manifested today in a series of proxy conflicts growing between US-backed Japan, and the US-backed Philippines, and to a lesser extent between North and South Korea, and even beginning to show in Myanmar. The governments of these nations have capitulated to US interests and their eagerness to play the role of America's proxies in the region, even at their own cost, is not a surprise. To expand this, however, the US fully plans on integrating Southeast Asia, installing proxy regimes, and likewise turning their resources and people against China.

In 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the capstone to Kagan's 1997 conspiracy. She published in Foreign Policy magazine, a piece titled, "America's Pacific Century" where she explicitly states:

In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific region.

To "sustain our leadership," "secure our interests," and "advance our values," are clearly hegemonic statements, and indicates that the US' goal for "substantially increased investment," including buying off NGOs and opposition parties in Malaysia, seeks to directly serve US leadership, interests, and "values,"  not within US borders, but outside them, and specifically across all of Asia.

Clinton continues:

At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential. It will help build that architecture and pay dividends for continued American leadership well into this century, just as our post-World War II commitment to building a comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships has paid off many times over -- and continues to do so.

The "architecture" referred to is the supranational ASEAN bloc - and again Clinton confirms that the US' commitment to this process is designed not to lift up Asia, but to maintain its own hegemony across the region, and around the world.

Clinton then openly admits that the US seeks to exploit Asia's economic growth:

Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology. Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia.

Of course, the purpose of an economy is to meet the needs of those who live within it. The Asian economy therefore ought to serve the needs and interests of Asians - not a hegemonic empire on the other side of the Pacific. Clinton's piece could easily double as a declaration by England's King George and his intentions toward emptying out the New World.

And no empire is complete without establishing a permanent military garrison on newly claimed territory. Clinton explains (emphasis added):

With this in mind, our work will proceed along six key lines of action: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment;forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights.

And of course, by "advancing democracy and human rights," Clinton means the continuation of funding faux-NGOs that disingenuously leverage human rights and democracy promotion to politically undermine targeted governments in pursuit of installing more obedient proxy regimes.

The piece is lengthy, and while a lot of readers may be tempted to gloss over some of the uglier, overtly imperial aspects of Clinton's statement, the proof of America's true intentions in Asia can be seen clearly manifested today, with the intentional encouragement of provocations between North and South Korea, an expanding confrontation between China and US proxies, Japan and the Philippines, and with mobs taking to the streets in Malaysia in hopes of overturning an election US-proxy Anwar Ibrahim had no chance of winning.

Clean & Fair Elections? 

While the battle cry for Anwar Ibrahim, his People's Alliance, and Bersih have been "clean and fair elections," in reality, allegations of fraud began long before the elections even started. This was not because Anwar's opposition party had evidence of such fraud - instead, this was to implant the idea into people's minds long before the elections, deeply enough to justify claims of stolen elections no matter how the polls eventually turned out.

At one point during the elections, before ballots were even counted, Anwar Ibrahim declared victory - a move that analysts across the region noted was provocative, dangerous, and incredibly irresponsible. Again, there could not have been any evidence that Anwar won, because ballots had not yet been counted. It was again a move meant to manipulate the public and set the stage for contesting Anwar's inevitable loss - in the streets with mobs and chaos in typical Western-backed color revolution style.

One must seriously ask themselves, considering Anwar's foreign backers, those backers' own stated intentions for Asia, and Anwar's irresponsible, baseless claims before, during, and after the elections - what is "clean and fair" about any of this?

Anwar Ibrahim is a fraud, an overt proxy of foreign interests. His satellite NGOs, including the insidious Bersih movement openly funded by foreign corporate-financier interests, and the equally insidious polling NGO Merdeka who portrays itself as "independent" despite being funded directly by a foreign government, are likewise frauds - drawing in well-intentioned people through slick marketing, just as cigarette companies do.

And like cigarette companies who sell what is for millions essentially a slow, painful, humiliating death sentence that will leave one broken financially and spiritually before ultimately outright killing them, Anwar's US-backed opposition is also selling Malaysia a slow, painful, humiliating death. Unfortunately, also like cigarettes, well-intentioned but impressionable people have not gathered all of the facts, and have instead have based their support on only the marketing, gimmicks, slogans, and tricks of a well-oiled, manipulative political machine.

For that folly, Malaysia may pay a heavy price one day - but for Anwar and his opposition party today, they have lost the elections, and the cheap veneer of America's "democracy promotion" racket is quickly peeling away. For now, America has tripped in mid-pivot toward its hegemonic agenda in Asia, with Malaysia's ruling government providing a model for other nations in the region to follow, should they be interested in sovereignty and independent progress - no matter how flawed or slow it may be.

Malaysians Must Reject the Empire Corporate US Trade Deal (TPP)

One of the least discussed and least reported issues is the Obama administration’s effort to bring the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to the forefront, an oppressive plurilateral US-led free trade agreement currently being negotiated with several Pacific Rim countries, including Malaysia.

Six hundred US corporate advisors have negotiated and had input into the TPP, and the proposed draft text has not been made available to the public, the press or policymakers.

The level of secrecy surrounding the agreements is unparalleled – paramilitary teams scatter outside the premise of each round of discussions while helicopters loom overhead – media outlets impose a near-total blackout of reportage on the subject and US Senator Ron Wyden, the Chair of the Congressional Committee with jurisdiction over TPP, was denied access to the negotiation texts.

“The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of US corporations — like Halliburton, Chevron, PhaRMA, Comcast and the Motion Picture Association of America — are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement,” said Wyden, in a floor statement to the US Congress.

In addition to the United States and Malaysia, the countries participating in the negotiations include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.


Japan has expressed its desire to become a negotiating partner, but not yet joined negotiation, partly due to public pressure to steer-clear.

The TPP would impose punishing regulations that give multinational corporations unprecedented rights to demand taxpayer compensation for policies they think will undermine their expected future profits straight from the treasuries of participating nations – it would push the agenda of Big PhaRMA in the developing world to impose longer monopoly controls on drugs, drastically limiting access to affordable generic medications that people depend on.

Washington is demanding aggressive intellectual property provisions that extend existing patents on medicines for up to 10 years in addition to the current requirement of 20 years.

“We are against the patent extension. According to the agreement, if a medicine is launched in the US, and then three years later it is launched in Malaysia, the patent would start from when it is launched here and not when it was launched earlier in the US, this is not fair,” said Malaysian Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai who has also argued that the TPP would make healthcare less affordable to the public.

According to leaked draft texts, the TPP would also impose investor protections that incentivise offshoring jobs through special benefits for companies – the TPP stifles innovation by requiring internet service providers to police user-activity and treat small-scale individual downloads as large-scale for-profit violators.
Most predictably, it would rollback regulation of finance capital predators on Wall Street by prohibiting bans on risky financial services and preventing signatory nations from exercising the ability to independently pursue monetary policy and issue capital controls – signatories must permit the free flow of derivatives, currency speculation and other manipulative financial instruments.

The US-led partnership – which seeks to impose ‘Shock and Awe’ Globalisation – aims to abolish the accountability of multinational corporations to the governments of countries with which they trade by making signatory governments accountable to corporations for costs imposed by national laws and regulations, including health, safety and environmental regulations.

Hollywood’s copyright cartels
The proposed legislation on Intellectual Property will have enormous ramifications for TPP signatories, including Internet termination for households, businesses, and organizations as an accepted penalty for copyright infringement.

Signatory nations would essentially submit themselves to oppressive IP restrictions designed by Hollywood’s copyright cartels, severely limiting their ability to digitally exchange information on sites like YouTube, where streaming videos are considered copyrightable.

“Broader copyright and intellectual property rights demands by the US would lock up the Internet, stifle research and increase education costs, by extending existing generous copyright from 70 years to 120 years, and even making it a criminal offense to temporarily store files on a computer without authorization. The US, as a net exporter of digital information, would be the only party to benefit from this,” said Patricia Ranald, convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network.

In the neoliberal investor-state that the TPP is attempting to establish, foreign corporations can sue national governments, submitting signatory countries to the jurisdiction of investor arbitral tribunals, staffed by private sector attorneys.

International tribunals could have authority to order governments to pay unlimited cash compensation out of national treasuries to foreign corporations and investors if new or existing government policy hinders investors’ expected future profits.

The domestic taxpayer in each signatory country must shoulder any compensation paid to private investors and foreign corporations, in addition to large hourly fees for tribunals and legal costs.

A good example of how this agreement neuters national sovereignty comes from Malaysia itself, which was able to recover from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis more quickly than its neighbours by introducing a series of capital control measures on the Malaysian ringgit to prevent external speculation – the TPP’s proposed measures would restrict signatory nations from exercising capital controls to prevent and mitigate financial crises and promote financial stability.

The TPP regime ensures that foreign investors and multinational corporations retain full rights to undermine the sovereignty of participatory nations by skirting domestic regulations and limiting the abilities of national governments to issue independent economic policy.

There has never been such a sweeping corporate assault on sovereignty, and leaked TPP documents detail how the TPP would give international judicial entities the authority to override national laws, allowing foreign companies doing business in the Malaysia the privilege of operating in a legal environment that would give them significant economic advantages.

There are no public discussions on why Malaysia sees participation in the TPP useful to its interests, and the Najib government has not released studies to determine the costs and benefits of TPP membership to the public.

The rational behind for Malaysia’s participation may be attributable to the herd mentality that surrounds regional trade agreements, whereby Putrajaya feels it could loose out from abstaining.

More plausibly, Najib is likely trying to forge closer economic and strategic relations with the US to make himself more attractive to the Washington consensus, which is ultimately a wrong move.

One-size-fits all international rules
Facing the emergence of strong developing economies like the BRICS group and other nations that seek greater access to industrial growth and development, the Obama administration realises that it must offer Pacific nations – who would otherwise have greater incentives in deepening economic ties with China – an attractive stake in the US economy.

As the Pentagon repositions its military muscle to the Asia-Pacific region, the TPP is clearly the economic arm of the ‘Asia Pivot’ policy, roping strategic economies into a legally binding corporate-governance regime, lured in by the promise of unfettered access to US markets.

The Obama administration is essentially selling off the American consumer to foreign corporations to usher in a deal that would impose one-size-fits all international rules that even limit the US government’s right to regulate foreign investment and the appropriation of natural resources, solidifying a long-discussed model of finance capital-backed global governance.

Due to the unconstitutional nature of the TPP, members of US Congress would likely object to many of its stipulations – naturally, the Obama administration is employing its executive muscle to restrict congressional authority by operating under “fast-track authority,” a trade provision that requires the US Congress to review an FTA under limited debate in an accelerated time frame subject to a yes-or-no vote so as to assure foreign partners that the FTA, once signed, will not be changed during the legislative process.

In Malaysia, members of parliament such as Charles Santiago have voiced frustrations over Putrajaya’s unwillingness to release any information regarding the agreement – in fact, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry is the only body with access to the draft text.

In the US, no formal steps have been taken to consult Congress as the agreement continues to be negotiated, and Obama looks set to subtly ram the treaty into law.

Such is the toxic nature of US policies that seek to bring in disaster-capitalism on a global scale, while keeping those whose lives will be most affected by deal completely in the dark.

Recent statistics claim that the combined economic output of Brazil, China and India will surpass that of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States by 2020.

More than 80% of the world’s middle class will live in the South by 2030, and what a different world that would be.

The United States is economically ailing, and the TPP – Washington’s answer to its own dwindling economic performance – is designed to allow US big business a greater stake in the emerging Pacific region by imposing an exploitative economic model on signatory nations that exempt multinationals and private investors from any form of public accountability.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad has called the TPP a means for the United States to access lucrative contracts for government procurements and continue its hegemony in the Asia Pacific region.

“This is something which every country, including the United States uses to support domestic businesses and industries. Once the United States gains access, not only will it make bids but their government pressure would be used to favour their companies,” he said.

Considering the close ties opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim enjoys with Washington insiders and Pakatan Rakyat’s failure to denounce neoliberal capitalism, the TPP will be an ongoing issue Malaysians must fight against irrespective of who wins GE13.

SM Mohamed Idris, president of the Consumers Association of Penang, argues that the TPP “would raise medicine prices in Malaysia at a time when the government’s ability to subsidise medicines is under pressure from the budget deficit. The US is persisting in these demands even though these go against the recommendations of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. The US’ intellectual property demands would also make inputs more expensive for farmers as well as extend copyright protection, making it 120 years (from the current 50) before some books could be copied.”

He also noted “the US is also likely to be asking for strong protection for its investors. This protection in existing USFTAs has previously required governments to pay millions of dollars in compensation for ordinary environmental and health and other regulations because they did not suit the foreign investor.”

He has also argued that Malaysia’s previous attempts to negotiate an FTA with the US stalled and dissolved over dozens contentious issues.

“Previously, the government has made public assurances that it will not sacrifice our national interests in order to forge a deal with the US. The Malaysian government stood firm and rejected the US’ similar outrageous demands in an FTA last time. We hope it does the same this time,” he stated.

Social activists in the United States are deeply opposed to the TPP, and there is no doubt that it will impose far-reaching implications for all signatory states that will be inherently negative for the rakyat.

Malaysians must stand with activists from all countries involved and call for the Malaysian government to back away from the TPP negotiations.

The overwhelming lack of transparency surrounding the talks lends credence to what is known already – that the contents of this trade agreement serve the interests of those on the top of the economic food chain while the rest of us stagnate on the menu.

FMT-Nile Bowie