Obama's cheap shot at China misguided

Using the State of the Union address to deliver a "cheap shot" is hard to imagine, but this is what President Barack Obama did on Jan 20, when he declared "...as we speak, China wants to write the rules for the world's fastest growing region".

And what he said next was just as provocative: "That would put our workers and businesses at a disadvantage. Why should we let that happen? We should write the rules..." Obama was clearly referring here to the US-crafted Trans-Pacific Partnership, seeking a way to spur the Congress to grant him the "fast track" authority needed to bring talks to conclusion.

That he would allege a competitive threat or rivalry with China, which is not participating in the TPP talks and was never invited to do so, to trigger congressional action evidences once again how the Obama administration has cynically made the myth of a "China threat" a central feature of its "pivot to Asia" political and economic strategy.