ABSTRACT

Taking as a central hypothesis that the US rebalancing strategy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) both aspire to play a key role in a long-term strategic response to China's rise, this chapter assesses the role of the economy in this "multidimensional" US rebalancing, by focusing in particular on the TPP. It then examines the key economic and security challenges for the US-China relationship in the context of the increasingly interdependent Asia-Pacific regional environment. The chapter shows how the economic dimension of the US pivot can be conceived as part of a major readjustment in the complex "web of linkages" between the security and economic components of American presence in the Asia-Pacific since the end of the Second World War. The interconnection dynamics clearly demonstrate that cross-regional free trade agreements (FTAs), through the promotion of a certain form of capitalism, are potentially on their way to embody international regulatory regimes in their own right.