translated from Spanish: The political week: the TPP-11, the intention to counteract China and its contribution to the conflict between the State and the indigenous peoples

In a new episode of the political week of the counter, Executive Director Federico Joannon, together with academics from the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile, Ana Maria Moure and Salvador Millaleo analyzed the flaws of the Trans-Pacific Agreement (TPP-11) of which Chile is a party. He talked about how damaging it can be for the country to be part of a treaty that tries to counteract the power of one of our most important economic partners, as is China, in addition to the violation of the indigenous consultation to which the agreement should Compulsorily submitted under Convention 169.
At the beginning of the debate, Salvador Millaleo referred to the environment that surrounds the TPP-11 and the reasons for the fierce criticism against it. “There have always been critical groups to free trade agreements, but they have never had so much audience. (…) This Treaty is in many redundant measures. In the end it comes to consolidate what other treaties have done, but in economic matters the benefits that it brings are questioned because it is an agreement with countries with which we already have an agreement, ‘ he said.
On the other hand, Ana Moure highlighted what was said in the internal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, regarding the topic. “There is an opinion that I have heard in person by officials working in Direcom at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which says that tariff barriers would be released for three thousand products, which today would not be covered in these Bilateral treaties, “he said.
In this regard, Millaleo noted that “it is clear that we are not gaining access to a new economy, which is why this release of these products seems insufficient. It is a treaty that rather looks like a strategy that tries to counteract China’s power in the Pacific and the Americas, when our main partner is China. In this sense we earn very little. ”
Moure put in the table a particular decision of the member countries of this Treaty. ” In the TPP11, 20 dispositions were suspended which were controversial and which were not given a finished answer. The United States first was one of those that demanded that these clauses be eliminated. These 20 provisions are not eliminated, are suspended, that means that these clauses can be re-activated, “he said.
“Through complementary negotiations they can be activated because they are not eliminated,” added Millaleo.
“The Seeds”  
Afterwards Joannon put on the table the situation of the farmers who have seeds and plant them. Are you going to be able to keep doing it?
Millaleo replied that “Chile signed a treaty that is the International Union for the Protection of plant varieties (UPOV 91), which is the organization that brings together all the countries that have a regulation on this. What the TPP11 does is reiterate something that we already did, in that sense does not alter the status quo. There was a bill that was the well-known Monsanto law, which proposed removing peasants from traditional seed control, which was not processed by Bachelet’s second government because of the controversy it generated. Even without TPP11, Chile is having an appropriate standard, so it does not innovate. ”
“State versus Native peoples”
Finally, the discussion between the native peoples and the state of Chile was covered by the somewhat irregular negotiation of the agreement.
“This adds a condiment to the conflicts between the state and the native peoples. This treaty directly affects indigenous peoples and has not undergone indigenous consultation, “Millaleo explained.
“It is an obligation and the State has to consult under Convention 169, that is a consultation that should be binding for the position that the state finally took”, added Moure.
“This is reckless imprudence, and in the end it is happening to bring the right of indigenous peoples to consultation,” the scholar said.
“The treaty was negotiated by the previous government, the current one does not take much care of the matter and leads the Congress to approve or not approve, and no one explains all these points well. We are in a rather vicious and perverse circle, “Joannon concluded.

Original source in Spanish