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WASHINGTON — In trying to win support for a controversial new trade pact in Asia, President Barack Obama has been offering one major reason why the deal is so important: to curb the economic power of China.
“As we speak, China wants to write the rules for the world’s fastest-growing region,” Obama said during his State of the Union address last month. “That would put our workers and our businesses at a disadvantage. Why would we let that happen? We should write those rules. We should level the playing field.”
The theme resonates with American workers, who have seen factories close and wages stagnate at home in the years since China joined the World Trade Organization and became a manufacturing powerhouse. But the credibility of Obama’s pitch hinges on a difficult and unlikely diplomatic effort: reforming the economic and political structures of several smaller Asian nations — in particular, Vietnam.
Of the 11 nations negotiating with the U.S. over the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, none has a closer relationship with China than Vietnam. Like China, which is not participating in the talks, Vietnam has a one-party communist government with a long record of human rights abuses. It has also some of the world’s weakest labor standards.
As a consequence, Vietnam has become as an increasingly popularoffshoring destination for businesses headquartered in China. Chinese companies regularly contract with factories in Vietnam, which in turn are overwhelmingly dependent on raw materials from China.
