BIT Neg

Solvency

1NC – CircumventionCircumvention – China has no incentive to restrict SOEs.Scissors ’15 – contributor and foreign policy journalist on the Hill, (Derek M, “Bilateral investment treaty with China more than a 'BIT' of trouble,” http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/258486-bilateral-investment-treaty-with-china-more-than-a-bit-of, DS)

While a 2016 vote is highly unlikely, the Obama administration is actively seeking a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with China. This is desirable in principle but destructive in practice. Most important, there is little indication that Beijing will meaningfully restrict state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or adopt non-discriminatory competition policies. Absent such action, a bilateral investment treaty is a bad idea. The current Chinese government is generally considered to be implementing pro-market reforms. This is true in some areas, such as finance, but manifestly not true in the corporate sector. China is discriminating more intensely against foreign companies, with an eye toward continuing to extract technology. Early this year, Qualcomm was fined almost $1 billion for supposed antitrust violations even as China simultaneously maintains a slew of state monopolies. More recently, Western Digital finally received Chinese approval for its global acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage, three-and-a-half years after initial consideration. This step, however, was only taken after Western Digital agreed to sell a 15 percent stake to a Chinese SOE. France's Alcatel learned from this and inked its China joint venture early in its own approval process. It should go without saying that competition policy which extorts multinationals is not compatible with being a good BIT partner. Another problem is far worse. China's policies with regard to its SOEs are antithetical to a core principle of the BIT — that foreign firms should receive the same treatment as domestic (national treatment). Multinationals may receive the same treatment as private Chinese firms but they are nowhere close to receiving the same treatment as SOEs.

1NC – Say NoChina says no to SOE concessions and environmental protections – turns the aff.Gantz ’14 - Samuel M. Fegtly Professor of Law, Director Emeritus, International Economic Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona, (David A, “CHALLENGES FOR THE UNITED STATES IN NEGOTIATING A BIT WITH CHINA: RECONCILING RECIPROCAL INVESTMENT PROTECTION WITH POLICY CONCERNS,” http://arizonajournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2-Gantz-Final.pdf, DS)

Given the progress made by Canada in its FIPA, and assuming that China will be willing to agree to similar terms in an agreement with the United States, the areas where China is likely to resist further concessions in its BIT practice include: • U.S. proposals for broader national treatment requirements with fewer exceptions (including those that protect SOEs); • Other aspects of non-discrimination by and for SOEs; •

Transparency, particularly with regard to U.S. investor actions against China; • Any substantive treatment of labor and environmental requirements; • Coverage of the pre-investment phase; performance requirements; and • The lists of exceptions existing and future exceptions to market access obligations. Coverage of financial services is also likely to be among the contentious issues at a time when banks in China are all owned and controlled by the government188 and remain important tools for subsidizing favored industry sectors and implementing other policies in an economy where growth and exports have slowed in the past two years.

Cybersecurity

1NC – No SolvencyBIT doesn’t solve cyber security – China won’t act, vagueness, and no consensus.Magnier 15 -- Mark Magnier is based in the Wall Street Journal’s Beijing bureau where he covers China’s economy and its broader implications for the world and the Middle Kingdom’s growing global ambitions. (Mark Magnier, "U.S.-China Investment Treaty Talks Cause Strain Ahead of Presidential Summit," http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-investment-treaty-talks-cause-strain-ahead-of-presidential-summit-1442576345 /KentDenver-NK)

BEIJING—China is dragging its heels on a bilateral investment treaty and needs to address U.S. cybersecurity concerns that threaten to jeopardize the relationship between the world’s two largest economies, a delegation of U.S. chief executives told top Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping in advance of a coming summit.¶ Despite 21 rounds of negotiations over the investment treaty extending back to 2008, China’s latest offer delivered last week still lists between 35 and 40 sectors off limits to foreign investors, a so-called negative list that needs to be whittled down to a “few sectors on a single piece of paper,” said Myron Brilliant, international vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a member of the delegation involved in two days of talks with Chinese counterparts.¶ “We’ve seen incremental progress but not yet substantial progress,” Mr. Brilliant said. “We made it clear, it’s not good enough.”¶ Chinese representatives countered that the U.S. also bore responsibility for slow progress toward concluding a bilateral investment treaty between the two countries. U.S. rules limiting Chinese participation in strategic infrastructure projects were “not transparent enough,” said Zhang Xiaoqiang, executive vice president of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. He added that the web of U.S. state and federal laws amounts to a long negative list in its own right.¶ “If there’s a lack of transparency at the state level, there will be many uncertainties for U.S. companies,” said Mr. Zhang, a former senior planning commission official.¶ The annual talks between business leaders and former government officials come two weeks before Mr. Xi’s summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington against a backdrop of global market volatility and growing bilateral tension over cybersecurity concerns and a draft Chinese national-security law.¶ The delegation of U.S. chief executives from the high-technology, steel, power and pharmaceutical industries said it emphasized in its meetings that failing to address U.S. cybersecurity concerns threatened to jeopardize the bilateral relationship and could undermine U.S. willingness to share technology.¶ “The onus is really on the Chinese government, whether state-sponsored or not,” Mr. Brilliant said. “It’s in the Chinese realm to crack down on this.”¶ U.S. representatives said they expressed their concern over the unfair advantages afforded to state-owned companies, discussed the importance of China’s structural reforms for global economic growth and expressed their misgivings over the vaguely worded draft national security law, which they fear could be used to promote national industrial champions rather than encourage liberalization.¶ “China defines national security as economic security, agricultural security, information security, cultural security,” said Jeremie Waterman, a senior policy adviser with the U.S. Chamber. “This could nullify market operations,” he added.

1NC – IP TurnBIT is a bad idea – China is a terrible partnerScissors 16 -- Derek M. Scissors is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on the Chinese and Indian economies and US economic relations with China and India. He also studies US economic relations with other Asian countries. He is author of the China Global Investment Tracker and a series of papers starting in late 2008 which chronicled the end of pro-market Chinese reform and predicted economic stagnation as a result. He is also currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University. (Derek Scissors, "Fixing US-China Trade and Investment," https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/China-US.pdf /KentDenver-NK)

Diagnosing the wrong ills will lead to the wrong cures. The US should not try to balance the trade¶ deficit or sanction China for having the wrong currency policy. Instead, the US should sanction¶ Chinese firms that benefit from stolen intellectual property, postpone a bilateral investment treaty, and¶ not grant market economy status until China becomes a much better partner. Amid rising populism, the US-China economic¶ relationship has become a major issue in the 2016¶ election. There are good reasons: the People’s¶ Republic of China (PRC) is a poor partner in¶ multiple respects. But the troubles caused by¶ Chinese behavior and the economic relationship¶ are not what most people think or what most¶ candidates rail against.¶ It is frequently asserted, and more frequently¶ during election years, that the large US trade¶ deficit costs jobs. The next sentence is often that¶ the sizable bilateral deficit with the PRC costs¶ American jobs. The main culprit is then said to be¶ Beijing’s exchange rate policy. None of those¶ claims stands up well—the statistical relationship¶ is very weak between the overall trade deficit and¶ bilateral deficit on one side and unemployment¶ on the other. The same is true for the exchange¶ rate, with the kicker that China’s currency may¶ have become too expensive over the last two¶ years, not too cheap.¶ The PRC, however, deserves other, important¶ criticisms. Politicians often vilify competition, but¶ it is the key to prosperity. The problem is not too¶ much competition in the US, but not enough¶ competition in China. While cheap imports¶ benefit American consumers, the PRC protects its¶ home market, blocking American exports and¶ hurting workers and companies. China not only¶ infringes on intellectual property (IP), but also is¶ the world’s biggest IP thief—again to make¶ American and other non-Chinese companies less¶ competitive, especially in manufacturing . ¶ It used to be stated merely in passing that the¶ PRC’s government and firms are opaque. The¶ growing Chinese impact on the world and events¶ in 2015 and 2016 make clear the opacity¶ endangers the PRC’s partners and in some cases¶ infringes American law. All this adds up to a far¶ more accurate description of the trouble in SinoAmerican¶ economic relations: China’s protections¶ at home, IP theft, and lack of transparency have¶ undermined US gains from China’s membership¶ in the World Trade Organization. Such Chinese¶ actions argue overwhelmingly against granting¶ the PRC market economy status or completing a¶ bilateral investment treaty.¶ Misdiagnosing an illness leads to the wrong cure.¶ The US should not fall victim to trying to correct¶ past problems, much less false ones. It should¶ instead target Chinese actions

that genuinely¶ affect the American economy right now, using¶ carrots and sticks to encourage better behavior.¶ Otherwise, the Sino-American relationship may¶ change, but it will not get any better.

2NC – IP TurnBIT allows China to acquire IP and leads to massive technological advancementChow 14 -- the Frank E. and Virginia H. Bazler Chair in Business Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of international trade law, international business transactions, international intellectual property, and the law of China (Daniel C.K., “Why China Wants a Bilateral Investment Treaty with the United States”, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2479893&download=yes//bj)

Second, the BIT could help China in achieving another one of its major national goals, along with promoting SOEs, that is, the acquisition of advanced technology and innovation.39 When China invests in the United States, China can either set up a “Greenfield” investment, i.e. a new company,40 or China can acquire an existing U.S. company through a mergers and acquisition (M&A) transaction.41 China will likely implement FDI by acquiring existing U.S. companies instead of setting up a Greenfield investment and M&A is the mode by which most FDI commonly occurs in the world today.42 When China acquires an existing U.S. company, China will acquire not only the tangible assets (the bricks and mortars) of the company, but also its intangible assets, i.e. its portfolio of intellectual property rights protected by statute (such as patents and trademarks), as well as its trade secrets, know-how, and confidential business information. In a recent transaction, Huawei Technologies, an SOE and a leading information technology giant, purchased certain intellectual property assets of 3Leaf Systems, an insolvent U.S. technology firm, for $2 million.43 Leading U.S. officials, including the Secretary of the Treasury, argued that Huawei’s acquisition of U.S. technology will allow the State-Party access to this technology and pose a threat to U.S. national security interests.44 Under pressure, Huawei withdrew its application to acquire the IP assets.45 Once the BIT enters into force, however, it might become more difficult to block the acquisition of U.S. IP assets by Chinese SOEs. The BIT might facilitate the acquisition by China’s SOEs of U.S. technology and allow China to further its national goal of becoming a global leader in technology innovation.46

Economy

1NC – Econ TurnUS-China BIT hurts the economy –increases trade deficit and kills jobs.Scott 14’ -- EPI’s director of trade and manufacturing policy research, testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at a hearing on U.S. -China Economic Challenges http://www.epi.org/publication/hearing-us-china-economic-challenges-trade/) A.S.Question 7. Why negotiate a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with China? Why seek an agreement that ensures U.S. companies are better able to move jobs to China? This question illustrates the tension between policies that are good for U.S. companies, and those that benefit

the United States as a location for jobs and production. The data on the economic impacts of foreign investment and “insourcing” are quite clear. Between 1990 and 2006, foreign multinational companies (MNCs) operating in the U.S. were responsible for the net loss of 4 million jobs in domestic firms taken over by those companies, due to layoffs, firms that spun off (and including net jobs created in startups owned by those firms) (Scott 2007). As Scott (2007) notes, one of the major motivations for negotiating a BIT is to encourage foreign multinationals to invest in the United States. Public officials often take credit for the local jobs created or retained by such investments. Millions of dollars in public money are often offered as incentives to attract such investments, in what often becomes a race-to-the bottom among cities and states that engage in “smokestack chasing.” Less attention has been given to what happens after the initial investment takes place. Sometimes foreign MNCs make an initial job-creating investment and then change their mind. Swedish MNC Electrolux, for example, manufactured refrigerators for years in Greenville, Michigan, but recently closed the plant and moved most of its 2,700 jobs to Mexico (Grand Rapids Press 2008).

Insourcing is often deliberately designed to remove jobs from American industries. Foreign multinationals buy U.S. firms, hollow them out, and then outsource production to their home countries. For example, a few years ago the Indian firm GHLC acquired Dan River, a U.S. textile company. News reports confirmed that “Indian firms are attracted in particular to companies whose brands enjoy considerable popularity in their home markets as those brands can be manufactured more cheaply in their Indian plants” (Business Wire 2007). A similar fate likely awaits Smithfield foods, which was recently purchased by China’s Shanghui (IndustryWeek 2013). Stepping back from the plant-level view of insourcing, Figure F provides data on total trade by U.S. and foreign MNCs for 1997 to 2011. Overall, these firms have been responsible for a growing share of the U.S. trade deficit. Though not shown in the figure, foreign MNCs alone were responsible for nearly half (44.2 percent) of the U.S. goods trade deficit in 2011. It is, in general, true that foreign companies invest in the United States to gain access to this market. In the 1990s and before, it was true that U.S. MNCs also invested abroad to gain market access. U.S. MNCs used to have a goods trade surplus until 2000.

Since then, these firms have developed a large and growing trade deficit. The dominant mode of production for U.S. MNCs is now oriented largely towards outsourcing production of

goods destined for sale in the United States. U.S. trade deficits with China and other countries have displaced millions of jobs in the United States. Overall, U.S. and foreign MNCs are responsible for nearly three-fourths (71.1 percent) of the U.S. goods trade deficit in 2011, and shown in

Figure F, and hence for most of the jobs displaced by trade in the United States. Thus, the globalization of finance, and the rapid growth of MNCs, have hurt the U.S.

economy through the contributions of these firms to growing U.S. trade deficits and trade-related jobs losses. What is good for Wall Street is

definitely not good for Main Street in America. The United States would be better served by using the scarce resources devoted to negotiating new international trade agreements and investment treaties to improve the enforcement of U.S. fair trade laws. The risks associated with a new BIT, especially with China, greatly outweigh any potential benefits. —The author thanks Ross Eisenbrey for comments and William Kimball for research assistance.

2NC – Econ TurnBIT’s stifle FDI and GDP growth – decades prove. Ginsburg ‘6 - Professor of Law, and Political Science Director, Program in Asian Law, Politics and Study University of Illinois College of Law, (Tom, “INTERNATIONAL SUBSTITUTES FOR DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS: BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATIES AND GOVERNANCE,” https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom_Ginsburg/publication/223125621_International_Substitutes_for_Domestic_Institutions_Bilateral_Investment_Treaties_and_Governance/links/0deec5275176582ac6000000.pdf, DS)

Interestingly, non-signers have a higher ratio of FDI/GDP. This may be because certain FDI is inelastic with regard to the presence of a BIT or commitment device. Natural resource investment may be a good example here. Some support for this hypothesis is provided by the evidence that BIT signers have fewer “point source exports.”23 Point source exports are those which are drawn from a narrow geographic area, such as diamonds or oil, and tend to be associated with negative governance outcomes like civil war and corruption. Point source exports may be those for which there is relatively little elasticity of demand, so that international commitment devices provide little additional protection. Alternatively, the negative sign for FDI/GDP may simply capture the smaller absolute size of non-signers: smaller countries typically draw more FDI per capita.24 One might assume from the discussion of BITs as a commitment device that BITs would be adopted by countries that otherwise had difficulty making credible commitments. We might thus expect non-signers to have better quality governance than signers, at least at the time of signing. The evidence here is ambiguous. The quality of government and regulatory quality is better among BIT-signers than non-BIT signers, but only regulatory quality approaches statistical significance, and the rule of law and corruption variables have negative signs. 25 All the mean coefficients for the normalized indicators used by Kaufmann et al. are negative, reflecting the general phenomenon that better governance is associated with wealth: if we include developed countries in the analysis the mean level of governance indicators increases. The lack of significance for the export variable is counterintuitive. Most analysts assume that liberal trade and investment can go together, because exports often flow to local affiliates of a parent company.26 For example, the WTO secretariat finds more FDI to countries with an open trade regime.27 An open investment climate allows capital to flow to where it is used efficiently, and be transformed into goods and services that are then available on the world market. But there is no indication here that BIT signers export more.

1NC – FDI TurnBIT’s don’t affect FDI – empirical data. Ginsburg ‘6 - Professor of Law, and Political Science Director, Program in Asian Law, Politics and Study University of Illinois College of Law, (Tom, “INTERNATIONAL SUBSTITUTES FOR DOMESTIC INSTITUTIONS: BILATERAL INVESTMENT TREATIES AND GOVERNANCE,” https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom_Ginsburg/publication/223125621_International_Substitutes_for_Domestic_Institutions_Bilateral_Investment_Treaties_and_Governance/links/0deec5275176582ac6000000.pdf, DS)

What effect have the BITs had on foreign investment? Casual observation suggests that the rapid increase in the density of the BIT-web has corresponded with a massive increase in foreign investment around the globe. Causality, however, is a more complex question. The most sophisticated analyses to date have found that BITs have had little effect on increasing FDI. In its 1998 study, UNCTAD found only a slight positive effect on investment after a two year lag.35 A more recent study by a World Bank economist analyzed bilateral flows of investment from 20 OECD members to 31 developing countries over two decades.36 Controlling for a time trend, the study found no independent effect on FDI. Countries which had signed BITs were no more likely than other countries to receive additional FDI. Most previous analyses of BITs had assumed they are efficacious in attracting investment. Guzman, for example, notes that “Without a BIT, a particular developing country will have a much lower level of investment than otherwise.”37 The question the World Bank study raises is, why do states adopt the BITs given their minimal effect on investment flows? We suggest three alternative answers here, without asserting that a single model explains all cases. First, one might see the BIT as a signal, either to foreign investors or to domestic audiences, that the government plans to pursue a liberal economic policy. By signaling that any expropriations will be compensated, and committing to other liberal policies embodied in BITs, the country signals its investment-friendly policies. The signaling story is one in which BIT adoption may be the result of policy changes rather than an embodiment of them. Some evidence for this proposition can be seen in the fact that, at the same time countries were adopting BITs, they were autonomously adopting internal regulatory changes that made foreign investment more liberal.38 A second possible explanation concerns institutional copying. BITs became “the thing to do” for developing countries in the 1990s, and spread through a desire to seem modern. In addition, the role of “norm entrepreneurs” such as ICSID, the UN and the ICC, who have promulgated codes and model rules that have articulated the low regulation standard, may also have played a role in spreading BITs among developing countries. A third possible answer is that BITs are adopted to embody a bargain between countries over investment that would occur anyway. Suppose that the flow of investment to some developing countries is inelastic to the overall level of protection offered to investors.39 That is, the same investment flows would occur whether the level of formal investment protection is high or low.40 This might be true, for example, for developing countries that are exporting natural resources such as oil. BITs would have distributional consequences but no consequences on the aggregate level of investment. Without BITs, and assuming demand for natural resources is inelastic, low levels of investment protection would increase the price of natural resources found in the developing world, producing gains for developing countries. Higher levels of investment protection would lower the price of resources and result in a

gain for investors and rich country consumers. Even if the level of investment is constant, the level of protection has major distributional consequences. This may help explain why some countries have not signed BITs and yet have enjoyed high levels of FDI per capita. These countries have “won” the negotiation with foreign investors and been able to maintain a lower level of investment protection, most likely because supply of inward investment is inelastic to the level of investment protection. Assuming that demand is inelastic relative to BITs is also consistent with the available evidence from the recent World Bank study showing little or no positive effect on investment flows.

1NC – Corporations TurnBIT hurts workers and reifies corporate power – 10 reasons.Drake ‘13 - a Trade & Globalization Policy Specialist at the AFL-CIO (Celeste, “A BIT with China Is the Wrong Solution to the Wrong Problem”, http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/A-BIT-with-China-Is-the-Wrong-Solution-to-the-Wrong-Problem//EC)

1. The United States is negotiating from a “model BIT” (and unlike other trade negotiations, this sample text is public, so we know for the most part what a BIT with China would look like). The model BIT does not effectively protect fundamental labor rights, including freedom of association, collective bargaining and freedom from forced labor. Given that the Chinese government does not adequately protect its workers in these critical areas, making it easier for U.S.-based companies to invest in China could exacerbate, rather than improve labor abuses in China. 2. U.S. companies attracted to China by the prospect of a low-labor rights regime could actually make our trade deficit with China worse if they export their artificially cheaper products to the United States, displacing products from the United States or other countries. This practice is sometimes called “social dumping.” 3. Without adequate and effective labor protections, global corporations essentially pit both countries against each another in a competition to lower their costs, which suppresses wages and working conditions for all. This is sometimes called the “race to the bottom.” 4. The model BIT contains investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS), a process that allows foreign investors who think a law or regulation may impact the value of its investment to skip a country’s domestic courts and bring their claims to a private panel (this process is called arbitration). In other words, foreign investors can bypass state and federal courts (the courts where all U.S.-owned businesses have to bring their claims) and instead pursue their legal claims in front of undemocratic, unaccountable panels of attorneys—not judges. 5. Most of the attorneys who form the arbitration panels come from elite law firms, and alternate between acting as panelists and acting as mouthpieces for global investors. 6. ISDS has been used to challenge democratically-enacted laws designed to promote public good. When corporations win, citizens lose, either because their government has to fork over precious taxpayer dollars to pay off the investor, or because the government agrees to withdraw the law or regulation at issue. 7. Despite the fact that the U.S. government and various state governments already have spent millions defending ISDS claims, the U.S. government still included it in the model BIT. 8. In the China context, state-owned enterprises, which are essentially an arm of the Chinese government, could use ISDS. This would allow a foreign country to use what is supposed to be a commercial process to engage in what should be resolved through diplomacy. 9. The model BIT would do nothing to address the Chinese government’s record of violating trade commitments. Since it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Chinese government has ignored commitments regarding market access for U.S. firms; enforcement of intellectual property rights; subsidies; dumping; export restrictions; currency exchange manipulation; and according equal status to national and foreign products. The U.S. government has had to resort to legal challenges over a wide variety of infractions, from chicken feet to electronic payment processing to rare earth minerals. 10. U.S. workers already have

been hurt by trade with China—losing more than 2.7 million jobs since 2001 and having their wages suppressed—by $37.0 billion in lost wages in 2011 alone. Workers cannot afford more bad trade policy decisions. The current U.S. approach to BITs is unacceptably flawed, and if the United States pursues a BIT with China now, it is likely to cause further harm to U.S.-based producers and America’s working families. Workers in both the United States and China deserve better.

1NC – China Econ UQChina’s economy strong now and will continue to get stronger.Yuying ’15 -- Vice Minister of the State Council Information Office of China (Cui, “The 'New Normal' of Bilateral Relationships”, http://www.bjreview.com.cn/print/txt/2015-05/18/content_688317.htm//JC)

How should we seek to understand the change in China's growth rate? For one thing, it is due to the change in the macroeconomic environments both in China and abroad; for another, it is a result of China's effort to change its development mode and to facilitate structural readjustment. Over the past three years, China has implemented a series of measures to lower energy use, reduce emissions and encourage innovation. While the growth rate has certainly slowed down, the quality of economy has been enhanced. The world economy is still in the stage of slow recovery, which is external downward pressure on China, but China still has many policy tools and measures it can adopt for adjustment. Comprehensively deepening reform will solve the issues that have created bottlenecks for China's development for years, creating new sectors for growth, consumption and investment. This will mean huge development opportunities for China apart from fueling the sustainable and inclusive development of the world economy. We are confident this will be the case. Some in other countries might think that China's reform has not met expectations. Based on this, they have come to pessimistic conclusions. This shows that they failed to see the remarkable progress in China's reform. China is working to solve the imperfections in its market system, such as excessive administrative intervention as well as a lack of a sufficient supervisory system. China is also reducing the sectors where the government directly allocates resources in perfecting its socialist market economic system. In particular, we have established free trade zones in Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian to promote further reform and opening up. We are also promoting and spreading what we call a negative power list and national treatment prior to market entry, which will be iconic for China's new round of reform and opening up. The government reform centered on simplifying governance and delegating powers will initiate a wave of entrepreneurship and nationwide innovation, boosting China's growth. China's market will open further to provide more opportunities. An IMF prediction shows that, in the next five years, China will import more than $10 trillion worth of goods, invest more than $500 billion overseas and send more than 500 million tourists to other countries. The Belt and Road Initiative (Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and Silk Road Fund proposed by China and the BRICS Bank, which is to be established, will adhere to the principle of inclusiveness in order to allow more countries to ride the express train of China's economy.

1NC – Econ CollapseNo impact to economic decline – prefer new dataDrezner 14 (Daniel Drezner, IR prof at Tufts, The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession, World Politics, Volume 66. Number 1, January 2014, pp. 123-164)

The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict and violence. During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict—whether through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the

Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder. The aggregate data suggest otherwise , however . The Institute for Economics and Peace has

concluded that "the average level of peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43 Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might have been expected."43

REMs

1NC – Squo SolvesREMS aren’t that rare – there are substitutesWeisenthal 11 -- Prior to joining Business Insider in October 2008, Joe was a correspondent for paidContent.org, as well as the Opening Bell editor at Dealbreaker.com. He previously was a writer and analyst for Techdirt.com, and before that worked as an analyst for money management firm Prentiss Smith & Co. (Joe Weisenthal, "What The Rare Earth Bulls Don't Want You To Realize," http://www.businessinsider.com/what-the-rare-earth-bulls-dont-want-you-to-realize-2011-1 /KentDenver-NK)We've published this before, but with MolyCorp exploding higher once again, and all of the rare earth stocks on a big roll we wanted to re-introduce you to it.¶ What the rare earth bolls don't want you to know is that rare earths aren't all that rare, there are substitutes, and China's dominance is overrated.¶ It basically comes down to this:¶ Yes, China does control 95% of rare earth production.¶ But that's mainly because it has the loosest environmental regulations. They are in abundance all around the world.¶ Rare earths aren't really that rare... they're more prevalent than gold.¶ And demand over the long-run is elastic. Companies are in fact finding alternatives to them.¶ So before you jump into the rare earth stocks to ride the bubble, at least get some background.

The US is getting REMs from so many other place – every pacific country has them and China is being forced to exportChen 11 – International policy journalist (Hanqing Chen, "Breaking the Chinese Monopoly On Rare Minerals," https://mic.com/articles/1030/breaking-the-chinese-monopoly-on-rare-minerals#.XqBYvK8vq /KentDenver-NK)The market for high-tech goods — everything from iPads to missiles — is booming, but it seems as if manufacturers may soon have trouble procuring the raw materials necessary to produce them.¶ On July 5, in a decision widely hailed by the international community as a victory for international commerce, the WTO ruled that China’s repeated curbing on exporting metals used in production violated their terms of accession as well as the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The ruling was in response to a complaint filed by the U.S., Mexico, and EU in 2009, expressing that China’s limiting of certain raw material exports put foreign markets at a severe disadvantage compared to China’s domestic market. ¶ The ruling seems to give the U.S. and Europe a mandate to follow up with a crackdown on China’s export limits of 17 rare earth elements widely used in high-tech manufacturing. China has attempted to defend its export limits on environmentalist grounds, citing the toll of mineral extraction on China’s already ravaged land. However, the WTO aptly rejected the defense: environmentalism calls for curtailing of production, not exportation of minerals. ¶ Invalid as China’s defense may be in terms of export limitations, no one can deny that their natural reserves are indeed being exhausted. According to Xinhua News, China’s state-run newspaper, the reserve has fallen from 85% of the world’s total new minerals in the 1990s to about one-third of the world’s total deposits today. The larger problem at hand is how to break the Chinese monopoly over these high-demand rare earth metals. The answer? We need to start looking elsewhere. ¶ China currently corners the world market by providing 97% of its rare earths. However, it is quite an open secret that the rareness of their rare earths is severely overrated — there are a number of deposits sitting untapped in Africa, Australia, and Greenland. The catch here, of course, is that the metals typically used in high-tech manufacturing are of very specific concentrations. Also, taking advantage of these long-neglected deposits may take much time and capital and harm the environment (although the latter does not seem to have stopped

China). Nonetheless, it is clear that these deposits do exist; we have simply neglected to take advantage of them.¶ In fact, Japanese scientists recently found high concentrations of rare earths in the Pacific Ocean floor. According to Tokyo University Professor Yasuhiro Kato, just one square kilometer could provide for one-fifth of the world’s annual consumption. The extraction method of choice would be acid-leaching. Understandably, the idea already has its critics, who contend that the slag left over after the silt is processed would be an environmental hazard wherever it is dumped. However, efforts such as these still speak to the ever-growing market demand for these raw materials.¶ Meanwhile, several nations have also been exploring ways of recycling metals, and items like old batteries, washing machines, cell phones, presenting an even more environmentally friendly way of addressing the impending rare earths shortage. This could also bolster our independence from China when it comes to raw materials. ¶ These solutions are far off and slow-moving at best, which is precisely why we need to see this WTO ruling not only as a triumph of open door commerce over the evils of protectionism in an international partnership, but a call to finally start digging up the natural resources that have been sitting right under our noses. At the end of the day, with the WTO taking such a strong stance against China, Beijing will probably lose their predicted appeal. And unless China wants to face economic sanctions involving the complainant nations, it will eventually back down.¶ But the fruit of this WTO saga should be more than just a mandate to slap China on the wrist; it should be the beginnings of a solution to an international problem of sustainability. Even China’s bottomless pits of natural resources will eventually be depleted, and if we are to build an alternative resource plentiful enough to compete and allow those resources to replenish, time is of the essence.

1NC – Heg I/LThe military is less dependent on Chinese REMS – alt sourcesCapaccio and Liebert 13 -- defense reporters at Bloomberg News (Tony Capaccio and Larry Liebert, "Pentagon Less Dependent on China Rare Earths, Report Says," http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-17/pentagon-less-dependent-on-china-rare-earths-report-says /KentDenver-NK)

China’s virtual monopoly on rare earth elements used in high-technology applications has been loosened, decreasing the risk that supplies to U.S. defense contractors could be disrupted, according to the Pentagon’s latest assessment of the nation’s industrial base.¶ “Global market forces are leading to positive changes in rare earth supply chains, and a sufficient supply of most of these materials likely will be available to the defense industrial base,” said the Pentagon report by Elana Broitman, the Defense Department’s top official on the U.S. industrial base. “Prices for most rare earth oxides and metals have declined approximately 60 percent from their peaks in the summer of 2011.”¶ Rare earths are 17 chemically similar elements used in products from Apple Inc.’s iPads and hybrid-electric cars to smart bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles made by Raytheon Co.¶ “An increase in supply of material from outside of China” and the substitution of other substances have reduced reliance on China since 2011, when it controlled 95 percent of the world’s supply and imposed export restrictions, said the report, which was sent to Congress last week.¶ Congress in 2011 required the Pentagon to examine the use of rare earth materials in defense applications, determine if non-U.S. supplies might be disrupted, and suggest ways to ensure long-term availability, as well as secure an assured source of supply by 2015.¶ Defense Research¶ The Defense Department is “conducting research in cooperation with a domestic producer to develop an economic and environmentally superior process for producing rare earth metals,” according to the report, which said that defense requirements generally are a small percentage of demand for the materials.¶ “These conclusions are wishful thinking, not a defense strategy,” Jeff Green, president of J.A. Green & Co. in Washington, who represents miners and users of the elements, said in an e-mailed statement.¶ “We still have no producers of the more defense-critical heavy rare earths, and significant gaps remain in the domestic production of metal, alloy and magnets, all found in our most critical weapons, with no appreciable investment planned to solve the production problem,” he said.¶ Magnet Material¶ Concerns remain about certain rare earths, according to the Pentagon report, which cited the lack of domestic production of neodymium-iron-boron magnets used in defense programs.¶ While China has been “the ultimate source” for the rare earth elements needed to make them, the report said, a joint venture between a U.S. producer and Japanese companies “has developed the technology for producing these magnets and is building a facility in Japan.”¶ Molycorp Inc. is the U.S. partner in that project, according to Jim Sims, spokesman for the company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Molycorp mines and processes rare earths at its Mountain Pass plant in California.¶ Molycorp, which owns the largest rare-earth deposit outside of China, and Sydney-based Lynas Corp. Ltd., which processes rare earths in Malaysia, “are increasing their production so there’s a growing diversity of supply for those rare-earth materials that eventually go into the magnets,” Sims said in an interview.

1NC – Environment TurnREMS devastate the environment – chemicals and habitat destructionMIT 16 -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Environmental Damage," http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/environment.html /KentDenver-NK)

The list of environmental concerns that can be connected with rare earth elements is not a¶ brief one . Throughout the cycle of mining processes that rare earth elements go through, there is potential for negative effects on the environment. Extracting rare earth elements begins with mining. This is followed by the refining process, and then disposal. All of the stages of mining, refining, and disposal come with unique issues.¶ Mining¶ The physical process of removing the ores from the ground is disruptive to the environment.¶ Most rare earth elements are mined through open pit mining, which involves opening the¶ surface of the earth using heavy equipment and machinery. Creating this disruption on the¶ surface of the earth disrupts thriving ecosystems. Furthermore, mines are the point source of release for three major contaminants: are radionuclides, rare earth elements, and dust and metal. Each of these contaminants escapes the mines in different ways and they each have different detrimental effects on the environment.¶ Refining¶ The goal of mining is to end up with a mostly pure and usable element that can be utilized in¶ whatever way necessary. However, the ores that are extracted from the earth do not come¶ out pure, instead they need to undergo a refining process. This refining process introduces¶ another set of environmental concerns, mostly revolving around the release of metal¶ byproducts into the environment. It is very easy for metals to enter the air, ground, or water¶ sin an environment, and once there it is nearly impossible to remove them. The metals in an¶ environment can also prove devastating to organisms.¶ Disposal¶ The byproduct of mining rare earth elements is usually waste that is full of further threats¶ to the environment. Generally, waste is categorized into two different types: tailings and¶ waste rock stockpiles. It is the tailings that are of particular concern as they are full of small,¶ fine particles that can be absorbed into the water and ground surrounding a particular mine.¶ Regardless of whether a contaminant is deemed tailings or waste rock stockpiles, however the contamination of the water is the main concern. Water can be contaminated in three ways: sedimentation, acid drainage, and metals deposition, and once contaminated is difficult to restore to its original quality.

2NC – Environment TurnEvery part of REM production devastates the biosphere – radioactive chemicalsKaiman 14 -- Jonathan Kaiman is an Asia correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reporting from Beijing (Jonathan Kaiman, "Rare earth mining in China: the bleak social and environmental costs," http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/rare-earth-mining-china-social-environmental-costs /KentDenver-NK)Rare earths are a group of 17 elements: "iron grey to silvery lustrous metals" that are "typically soft, malleable, and ductile; and usually reactive", according to the US Geological Survey. They're crucial in manufacturing a broad array of high-tech products, such as smartphones, wind turbines, camera lenses, magnets and missile defence systems. China produces more than 85% of the world's supply, about half of which comes from Baotou, a city of 2.5 million in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, 650km northwest of Beijing.¶ Processing rare earths is a dirty business. Their ore is often laced with radioactive materials such as thorium, and separating the wheat from the chaff requires huge amounts of carcinogenic toxins – sulphates, ammonia

and hydrochloric acid. Processing one ton of rare earths produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste; Baotou's rare earths enterprises produce 10m tons of wastewater per year. They're pumped into tailings dams, like the one by Wang's village, 12km west of the city centre.¶ China began mining the minerals on a mass scale in the mid 1980s, and after nearly two decades of lax environmental regulation has only recently begun to address their noxious legacy. Seven years ago, China began restricting and taxing its rare earths exports, ostensibly to improve its environmental record. In 2010, the US, European Union and Japan – long accustomed to China's inexpensive supply – lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organisation. China, they argued, was simply encouraging domestic consumers to pick up the slack. In late October, the organisation ruled that China's export restrictions violated its regulations. China is expected to appeal.¶ In 2009, Baotou Steel began relocating farmers from villages around the tailings pond to resettlement sites on the city's outskirts; it has set up a waste managing warehouse staffed by 400 employees. Yet the pond is still a reminder of how far China's cleanup effort has to go. Surrounding villages are decimated. Stray dogs amble through dessicated corn and wheat fields, the rusted frames of dismantled greenhouses arching above tangles of discarded plastic bags.¶ "In China, the cost of environmental violations and damage is still way too low," said Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. "Rare earths is such a classic case of this – we basically export the resources at a rather cheap price, and much of the environmental cost is externalised to local communities."¶ Most of the rare earths processed by Baotou are extracted in Bayan Obo, a mining district in the Gobi desert 120km north of the city. Its largest open-pit mine is 1,000 metres deep and spans 48 sq km; in satellite images by Nasa released in 2012, it appears as one of many massive black craters dwarfing a sprawl of apartment blocks directly to their south.¶ In 2009, the Beijing Science and Technology News reported that the area is struggling with its own pollution problems. A villager near its eastern mine told the newspaper that while visiting a nearby sheep market the year prior, he found that many of the animals had two rows of teeth, some so long that they couldn't close their mouths.¶ Other countries have become less dependent on China's rare earths supply since 2010, when export quotas caused global prices to spike. The US and Australia are developing their own, more environmentally friendly mines. Rare earths-dependent industries are learning to recycle.

1NC – WarmingNo impact – mitigation and adaptation will solve---no tipping point or “1% risk” args Mendelsohn 9 (Robert O. Mendelsohn 9, the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, June 2009, “Climate Change and Economic Growth,” online: http://www.growthcommission.org/storage/cgdev/documents/gcwp060web.pdf)

The heart of the debate about climate change comes from a number of warnings from scientists and others that give the impression that human-induced climate change is an immediate threat to society (IPCC 2007a,b; Stern 2006). Millions of people might be vulnerable to health effects (IPCC 2007b), crop production might fall in the low latitudes (IPCC 2007b), water supplies might dwindle (IPCC 2007b), precipitation might fall in arid regions (IPCC 2007b), extreme events will grow exponentially (Stern 2006), and between 20–30 percent of species will risk extinction (IPCC 2007b). Even worse, there may be catastrophic events such as the melting of Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets causing severe sea level rise, which would inundate hundreds of millions of people (Dasgupta et al. 2009). Proponents argue there is no time to waste. Unless greenhouse gases are cut dramatically today, economic growth and well‐being may be at risk (Stern 2006). These statements are largely alarmist and misleading . Although climate change is a serious problem that

deserves attention, society’s immediate behavior has an extremely low probability of leading to catastrophic consequences . The science and economics of climate change is quite clear that emissions over the next few decades will lead to only mild consequences . The severe impacts

predicted by alarmists require a century (or two in the case of Stern 2006) of no mitigation . Many of the predicted impacts assume there will be no or little adaptation. The net economic impacts from climate change over the next 50 years will be small regardless. Most of the more severe impacts will take more than a century or even a millennium to unfold and many of these “potential” impacts will never occur because people will adapt . It is not at all apparent that immediate and dramatic policies need to be developed to thwart long ‐ range climate risks. What is needed are long‐run balanced responses.

No impact – they’re missing hard, conclusive data.Koonin 14 - Steven Koonin, Professor of Theoretical Physics and Provost at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Former Undersecretary for Science in the Energy Department, Director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University, Served on numerous Advisory Boards at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy, Sept. 19, 2014, (“Climate Science Is Not Settled”, http://online.wsj.com/articles/climate-science-is-not-settled-1411143565

The idea that "Climate science is settled" runs through today's popular and

policy discussions. Unfortunately, that claim is misguided . It has not only distorted our public and policy debates on issues related to energy,

greenhouse-gas emissions and the environment. But it also has inhibited the scientific and policy discussions that we need to have about our climate future. My training as a computational physicist—together with a 40-year career of scientific research, advising and management in academia, government and the private sector—has afforded me an extended, up-close perspective on climate science. Detailed technical discussions during the past year with leading climate scientists have given me an even better sense of what we know, and don't know, about climate. I have come to appreciate the daunting scientific challenge of answering the questions that policy makers and the public are asking. The crucial scientific question for policy isn't whether the climate is changing. That is a settled matter: The climate has always changed and always will . Geological and historical records show the occurrence of major climate shifts, sometimes over only a few decades. We know, for instance, that during the 20th century the Earth's global average surface temperature rose 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Nor is the crucial question whether humans are influencing the climate. That is no hoax: There is little doubt in the scientific community that continually growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due largely to carbon-dioxide emissions from the conventional use of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate. There is also little doubt that the carbon dioxide will persist in the atmosphere for several centuries. The impact today of human activity appears to be comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself. Rather, the crucial, unsettled scientific question for policy is, "How will the climate change over the next century under both natural and human influences?" Answers to that question at the global and regional levels, as well as to equally complex questions of how ecosystems and human activities will be affected, should inform our choices about energy and infrastructure. But—here's the catch—those questions are the hardest ones to answer. They challenge, in a fundamental way, what science can tell us about future

climates. Even though human influences could have serious consequences for the climate , they are physically small in relation to the climate system as a whole . For example, human additions to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the middle of the 21st century are expected to directly shift the atmosphere's natural greenhouse effect by only 1% to 2%. Since the climate system is highly variable on its own, that smallness sets a very high bar for confidently projecting the consequences of human influences. A second challenge to "knowing" future climate is today's poor understanding of the oceans. The oceans, which change over decades and centuries, hold most of the climate's heat and strongly influence the atmosphere. Unfortunately, precise, comprehensive observations of the oceans are available only for the past few decades; the reliable record is still far too short to adequately understand how the oceans will change and how that will affect climate. A third fundamental challenge arises from feedbacks that can dramatically amplify or mute the climate's response to human and natural influences. One important feedback, which is thought to approximately double the direct heating effect of carbon dioxide, involves water

vapor, clouds and temperature. But feedbacks are uncertain . They depend on the details of processes such as evaporation and the flow of radiation through clouds. They cannot be determined confidently from the basic laws of physics and chemistry, so they must be verified by precise,

detailed observations that are, in many cases, not yet available . Beyond these observational challenges are those posed by the complex computer models used to project future climate. These massive programs attempt to describe the dynamics and interactions of the various components of the Earth system—the atmosphere, the oceans, the land, the ice and the biosphere of living things. While some parts of the models rely on well-tested physical laws, other parts involve technically informed estimation. Computer modeling of complex systems is as much an art as a science. For instance, global climate models describe the Earth on a grid that is currently limited by computer capabilities to a resolution of no finer than 60 miles. (The distance from New York City to Washington, D.C., is thus covered by only four grid cells.) But processes such as cloud formation, turbulence and rain all happen on much smaller scales. These critical processes then appear in the model only through adjustable assumptions that specify, for example, how the average cloud cover depends on a grid box's average temperature and humidity. In a given model, dozens of such assumptions must be adjusted ("tuned," in the jargon of modelers) to reproduce both current observations and imperfectly known historical records. We often hear that there is a "scientific consensus" about climate change. But as far as the computer models go, there isn't a useful consensus at the level of detail relevant to assessing human influences . Since 1990, the United Nations

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has periodically surveyed the state of climate science. Each successive report from that endeavor, with contributions from thousands of scientists around the world, has come to be seen as the definitive assessment of climate science at the time of its issue. There is little doubt in the scientific community that continually growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due largely to carbon-dioxide emissions from the conventional use of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate. For the latest IPCC report (September 2013), its Working Group I, which focuses on physical science, uses an ensemble of some 55 different models. Although most of these models are tuned to reproduce the gross features of the Earth's climate, the marked differences in their details and projections reflect all of the limitations that I have described. For example: • The models differ in their descriptions of the past century's global average surface temperature by more than three times the entire warming recorded during that time. Such mismatches are also present in many other basic climate factors, including rainfall, which is fundamental to the atmosphere's energy balance. As a result, the models give widely varying descriptions of the climate's inner workings . Since they disagree so markedly, no more than one of them can be right . • Although the Earth's average surface temperature rose sharply by 0.9 degree Fahrenheit during the last quarter of the 20th century, it has increased much more slowly for the past 16 years, even as the human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen by some 25%. This

surprising fact demonstrates directly that natural influences and variability are powerful enough to counteract the present warming influence exerted by human activity . Yet the models

famously fail to capture this slowing in the temperature rise. Several dozen different explanations for this failure have been offered, with ocean variability most likely playing a major role. But the whole episode continues to highlight the limits of our modeling. • The models roughly describe the shrinking extent of Arctic sea ice observed over the past two decades, but they fail to describe the comparable growth of Antarctic sea ice, which is now at a record high. • The models predict that the lower atmosphere in the tropics will absorb much of the heat of the warming atmosphere. But that "hot spot" has not been confidently observed, casting doubt on our understanding of the crucial feedback of water vapor on temperature. • Even though the human influence on climate was much smaller in the past, the models do not account for the fact that the rate of global sea-level rise 70 years ago was as large as what we observe today—about one foot per century. • A crucial measure of our knowledge of feedbacks is climate sensitivity—that is, the warming induced by a hypothetical doubling of carbon-dioxide concentration. Today's best estimate of the sensitivity (between 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit and 8.1 degrees

Fahrenheit) is no different, and no more certain, than it was 30 years ago . And this is despite an heroic research effort costing billions of dollars. These and many other open questions are in fact described in the IPCC research reports, although a detailed and knowledgeable reading is sometimes required to discern them. They are not "minor" issues to be "cleaned up" by further research. Rather, they are deficiencies that erode confidence in the computer projections . Work to resolve these

shortcomings in climate models should be among the top priorities for climate research. Yet a public official reading only the IPCC's "Summary for Policy Makers" would gain little sense of the extent or implications of these deficiencies. These are fundamental challenges to our understanding of human impacts on the climate, and they should not be dismissed with the mantra that "climate science is settled." While the past two decades have seen progress in climate science, the field is not yet mature enough to usefully answer the difficult and important questions being asked of it. This decidedly unsettled state highlights what should be obvious: Understanding climate, at the level of detail relevant to human influences, is a very, very difficult problem. We can and should take steps to make climate projections more useful over time. An international commitment to a sustained global climate observation system would generate an ever-lengthening record of more precise observations. And increasingly powerful computers can allow a better understanding of the uncertainties in our models, finer model grids and more sophisticated descriptions of the processes that occur within them. The science is urgent, since we could be caught flat-footed if our understanding does not improve more rapidly than the climate itself changes. A transparent rigor would also be a welcome development, especially given the momentous political and policy decisions at stake. That could be supported by regular, independent, "red team" reviews to stress-test and challenge the projections by focusing on their deficiencies and uncertainties; that would certainly be the best practice of the scientific method. But because the natural climate changes over decades, it will take many years to get the data needed to confidently isolate and quantify the effects of human influences. Policy makers and the public may wish for the comfort of certainty in their climate science. But I fear that rigidly promulgating the idea that climate science is

"settled" (or is a "hoax") demeans and chills the scientific enterprise, retarding its progress in these important matters . Uncertainty is a prime mover and motivator of science and must be faced head-on. It should not be confined to hushed sidebar conversations at academic conferences. Society's choices in the years ahead will necessarily be based on uncertain knowledge of future climates. That uncertainty need not be an excuse for inaction. There is well-justified prudence in accelerating the development of low-emissions technologies and in cost-effective energy-efficiency measures. But climate strategies beyond such "no regrets" efforts carry costs, risks and questions of effectiveness, so nonscientific factors inevitably enter the decision. These include our tolerance for risk and the priorities that we assign to economic development, poverty reduction, environmental quality, and intergenerational and geographical equity. Individuals and countries can legitimately disagree about these matters, so the discussion should not be about "believing" or "denying" the science. Despite the statements of numerous scientific societies, the scientific community cannot claim any special expertise in addressing issues related to humanity's deepest goals and values. The political and diplomatic spheres are best suited to debating and resolving such questions, and misrepresenting the current state of climate science does nothing to advance that effort. Any serious discussion of the changing climate must begin by acknowledging not only the scientific certainties but also the uncertainties, especially in projecting the future. Recognizing those limits, rather than ignoring them, will lead to a more sober and ultimately more productive discussion of climate change and climate policies. To do otherwise is a great disservice to climate science itself.

Warming’s inevitable even with complete halting of emissions Rood 14, Professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences at the University of Michigan, December 11th https://theconversation.com/what-would-happen-to-the-climate-if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhouse-gases-today-35011, “What would happen to the climate if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today?”

Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The primary cause of that change is the release of carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and natural gas. International climate talks in Lima this week are laying the foundation for next year’s UN climate summit in Paris. While negotiations about reducing emissions grind on, how much warming are we already locked into? If we stop emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, why would the temperature continue to rise? Basics of carbon and climate The carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere insulates the surface of the Earth. It’s like a warming blanket that holds in heat. This energy increases the Earth’s surface average temperature, heats the oceans and melts polar ice. As consequences, sea level rises and weather changes. Global average temperature has increased. Anomalies are relative to the mean temperature of 1961-1990. Since 1880, after carbon dioxide emissions took off with the Industrial Revolution, the average global temperature has increased about 1.5F (0.85C). Each of the last three decades has been warmer than the preceding decade, as well as warmer than the entire previous century. The Arctic is warming much faster than the average global temperature; ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting and the permafrost is thawing. Ice sheets in both the Arctic and Antarctic are melting. Ecosystems on both land and in the sea are changing. The observed changes are coherent and consistent with our theoretical understanding of the Earth’s energy balance and simulations from models that are used to understand past variability and to help us think about the future. Slam on the climate brakes What would happen to the climate if we were to stop emitting carbon dioxide today, right now? Would we return to the climate of our elders? The simple answer is no . Once we release the carbon dioxide stored in the fossil fuels we burn, it accumulates in and moves amongst the atmosphere, the oceans, the land, and the plants and

animals of the biosphere. The released carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years . Only after many millennia will it return to rocks, for example, through the formation of calcium carbonate – limestone – as marine organisms' shells settle

to the bottom of the ocean. But on time spans relevant to humans, once released the carbon dioxide is in our environment essentially forever . It does not

go away, unless we, ourselves, remove it. If we stop emitting today, it’s not the end of the story for global warming. There’s a delay in temperature increase as the climate catches up with all the carbon that’s in the atmosphere. After maybe 40 more years, the climate will stabilize at a temperature higher than what was normal for previous generations. This decades-long lag between cause and effect is due to the long time it takes to heat the the ocean’s huge mass. The energy that is held at the Earth by the increased carbon dioxide does more than heat the air. It melts ice; it heats the ocean. Compared to air, it’s harder to raise the temperature of water – it takes time, decades. However, once the ocean temperature is elevated, it adds to the warming of the Earth’s surface. So even if carbon emissions stopped completely right now , as the oceans catch up with the atmosphere, the Earth’s temperature would rise about another 1.1F (0.6C). Scientists refer to this as committed

warming. Ice, also responding to increasing heat in the ocean, will continue to melt. There’s already convincing evidence that significant glaciers in the West Antarctic ice sheets are

lost. Ice, water, and air – the extra heat held on the Earth by carbon dioxide affects them all. That which has melted will stay melted – and more will melt .

Ecosystems are altered by natural and manmade occurrences. As they recover, it will be in a different climate from that in which they evolved. The climate in which they recover will not be stable ; it will be continuing to warm. There will be no new normal, only more change.

1NC - DiseaseBurnout and variation check.York 14 (Ian, head of the Influenza Molecular Virology and Vaccines team in the Immunology and Pathogenesis Branch of the Influenza Division at the CDC, PhD in Molecular Virology and Immunology from McMaster University, M.Sc. in Veterinary Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Guelph, former Assistant Prof of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at Michigan State, “Why Don't Diseases Completely Wipe Out Species?” 6/4/2014, http://www.quora.com/Why-dont-diseases-completely-wipe-out-species)

But mostly diseases don't drive species extinct. There are several reasons for that. For one, the most dangerous diseases are those that spread from one individual to another. If the disease is highly lethal , then the population drops, and it becomes less likely that individuals will contact each other during the infectious phase. Highly contagious diseases tend to burn themselves out that way.¶ Probably the main reason is variation. Within the

host and the pathogen population there will be a wide range of variants. Some hosts may be naturally resistant. Some pathogens will be less virulent . And either alone

or in combination, you end up with infected individuals who survive .¶ We see this in HIV, for example. There is a small fraction of humans who are naturally resistant or altogether immune to HIV, either because of their CCR5 allele or their MHC Class I type. And there are a handful of people who were infected with defective versions of HIV that didn't progress to disease. ¶ We can see indications of this sort of thing happening in the past, because our genomes contain many instances of

pathogen resistance genes that have spread through the whole population. Those all started off as rare mutations that conferred a strong selection advantage to the carriers, meaning that the specific infectious diseases were serious threats to the species.

Intervening actors check Zakaria, PhD from Harvard, 9—Editor of Newsweek, BA from Yale, PhD in pol sci, Harvard. He serves on the board of Yale University, The Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and Shakespeare and Company. Named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century" (Fareed, “The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good,” 13 June 2009, http://www.newsweek.com/id/201935, AMiles)

It certainly looks like another example of crying wolf. After bracing ourselves for a global pandemic, we've suffered something more like the usual seasonal influenza. Three weeks ago the World Health Organization declared a health emergency, warning countries to "prepare for a pandemic" and said that the only question was the extent of worldwide damage. Senior officials prophesied that millions could be infected by the disease. But as of last week, the WHO had confirmed only 4,800 cases of swine flu, with 61 people having died of it. Obviously, these low numbers are a pleasant surprise, but it does make one wonder, what did we get wrong? Why did the predictions of a pandemic turn out to be so exaggerated? Some people blame an overheated media, but it would have been difficult to ignore major international health organizations and governments when they were warning of catastrophe. I think there is a

broader mistake in the way we look at the world. Once we see a problem, we can describe it in great detail, extrapolating all its possible consequences. But we can rarely anticipate the human response to that crisis. Take swine flu. The virus had crucial characteristics that led researchers to worry that it could spread far and fast. They described—and the media reported—what would happen if it went unchecked. But it did not go unchecked. In fact, swine flu was met by an extremely vigorous response at its epicenter, Mexico. The Mexican government reacted quickly and massively, quarantining the infected population, testing others, providing medication to those who needed it. The noted expert on this subject, Laurie Garrett, says, "We should all stand up and scream, 'Gracias, Mexico!' because the Mexican people and the Mexican government have sacrificed on a level that I'm not sure as Americans we would be prepared to do in the exact same circumstances. They shut down their schools. They shut down businesses, restaurants, churches, sporting events. They basically paralyzed their own economy. They've suffered billions of dollars in financial losses still being tallied up, and thereby really brought transmission to a halt." Every time one of these viruses is detected, writers and officials bring up the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918 in which millions of people died. Indeed, during the last pandemic scare, in 2005, President George W. Bush claimed that he had been reading a history of the Spanish flu to help him understand how to respond. But the world we live in today looks nothing like 1918. Public health-care systems are far better and more widespread than anything that existed during the First World War. Even Mexico, a developing country, has a first-rate public-health system—far better than anything Britain or France had in the early 20th century.

Relations

1NC – WTO TurnRegional trade liberalization floods the WTO DSB – information overload makes it ineffective. McRae ‘4 – professor of IR at Oxford University, (Donald, “What is the Future of WTO Dispute Settlement?” Oxford University Press p.19)

A turning away from dispute settlement processes as a consequence of a greater resort to unilateralism in international affairs will represent a challenge for WTO dispute settlement. Equally, turning to bilateral and regional approaches to trade liberalization could lead to a proliferation of dispute settlement organs and conflict between WTO and other dispute settlement bodies. But a challenge will also result from increased multilateralism, with more frequent resort to WTO dispute settlement. Whether the existing system could handle substantially more cases is doubtful.

1NC – Relations Alt CauseAlt causes – censorship, legal infrastructure, cyber-hacking and human rights.Shambaugh ’15 – Prof of Political Science @ George Washington, specializes in US-Sino Relations (David, “Sino-US relations: Divorce is not an option”, June 12th, http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/sino-us-relations-divorce-is-not-an-option//JC)

But there have been a number of other lesser, but not unimportant, issues that have recently buffeted the relationship in different realms - in law enforcement (arrests of Chinese for technology theft and falsification of applications to US universities), legal (China's draft non-governmental organisation and national security laws), human rights (convictions of rights lawyers and the general repression in China since 2009), cyber-hacking (of the US Office of Personnel Management most recently) and problems in trade and investment. Hardly a day passes when one does not open the newspaper to read of more - and serious - friction. This is the "new normal" and both sides had better get used to it rather than naively professing a harmonious relationship that is not achievable.

1NC – PivotPivot fails - budgetMark E. Manyin et al 12, Coordinator, Specialist in Asian Affairs, Stephen Daggett, Specialist in Defense Policy and Budgets Ben Dolven, Specialist in Asian Affairs Susan V. Lawrence, Specialist in Asian Affairs Michael F. Martin, Specialist in Asian Affairs Ronald O'Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs Bruce Vaughn, Specialist in Asian Affairs, “Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration’s “Rebalancing” Toward Asia,” 3-28-12, http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf, DOA: 3-6-15, y2k

Budgetary Pressures Plans to restructure U.S. military deployments in Asia

may run up against more restrictive budget constraints than plans yet assume,

and may also raise a number of policy issues.34 A critical issue is whether long-term procurement trends will sustain a level of investment spending in new

weapons systems sufficient to support planned naval force levels in the

Pacific and elsewhere. For example, there is considerable concern that long-term Navy budgets will not sustain a Navy of 313 ships, as called for in recent plans. 35 Additionally,

looming automatic spending cuts laid out in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L.

112-25/S. 365 of August 2, 2011) would entail significant and precipitous reductions in military end-strength, and operational and training funds, as well as delays in investments .36 Automatic cuts in spending would be particularly

disruptive to defense planning . Even if future cuts are more rationally allocated, additional reductions might well entail further cuts in the size of U.S. military forces.

Pivot fails – no political supportKelly 14 (Robert. 5/6. Robert E. Kelly is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at the Pusan National University in South Korea. “The ‘pivot’ and its problems: American foreign policy in Northeast Asia ” The Pacific Review, 27:3 Taylor and Francis Online) 9/5/15 RKThere are however four potential problems for the pivot’s implementation rarely discussed. First, there is

no obvious constituency in US domestic politics to support this shift . In the 1990s, the US business community helped push through trade with China. It derailed efforts to block permanent most favored nation status for China and supported China’s accession to the WTO. But today, that community is no longer so positive. Relentless Chinese mercantilism and IPR violations have reduced business’ willingness to defend China in Washington (Rachman 2012; Shambaugh 2013). AsianAmericans are not a large, coherent ethnic bloc demanding the pivot. America’s political elites have not dramatically altered their rhetoric either; despite Obama’s own championing of the pivot, his team is still reliably Atlanticist (Stephens 2013). The 2012 debates of the Republican primary and presidential

election scarcely touched on Asia, other than the reliably populist theme that China is cheating. The

Middle East continues to dominate (Luce 2012). Neither political party’s coalition contains a clear bloc of voters demanding the pivot of Washington. As a rule of thumb, the less wealthy one is, the less one cares about far-off issues like foreign policy, so it is unlikely that the underprivileged and youth who helped Obama win want or even care about this. While college-educated whites, who also

broke for Obama, likely support this, the rest of the Democratic coalition traditionally focuses on domestic issues like education, social mobility, the courts, redistribution and safety nets, and so on

(McConnell 2012). Perhaps labor unions care a bit, but they probably want less not more engagement with Asia . The Obama administration’s commitment to the pivot is elite-driven so far . However, more importantly,

the Republican Party, long the party that supposedly cared more about foreign policy, remains focused on the Middle Ea st (Dueck 2011; Green 2008: 592; Indyk 2012; ‘the Re-Pivot’). Around 40% of Americans claim to have had a born-

again experience (Winseman 2005). For them, Israel is easily America’s most important ally a point the American Republican (GOP) party’s near-obsession with Israel in 2012 presidential campaign and the hearings of Defense Secretary-designate Charles Hagel made very clear (Kaplan 2013; Walt 2013b). The US religious right’s post-9/11 Kulturkamp with Islam is a central

political value (Marsden 2012). The course of Iran occupies these voters far more than culturally obscure East Asia. R ick Santorum and Mitt Romney both called Iran and salafism the most important issue in US foreign policy in 2012. In that Christianist mindset, what are Korea or China but factory floors far away who make goods for Walmart? Kaplan (2006): ‘And PACOM will not be nearly as constrained as CENTCOM by Washingtonbased domestic politics. Our actions in the Pacific will not be swayed by the equivalent of the Israel lobby; Protestant evangelicals will care less R.E. Kelly: The ‘Pivot’ and Its Problems 493 Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 13:53 05 September 2015 about the Pacific Rim than about the fate of the Holy Land.’

Asia does not activate or mobilize these ‘Jacksonian-Christianist’ voters . In short, Democrats care little about Asia one way or another , besides a vague sense that China is ‘cheating,’ and Republicans want to keep the focus on the Middle East. Given that voter support is necessary in the medium- and long-terms for any major policy commitment in the US democracy, shallow electoral support is a vulnerability.

1NC – SCSTensions won’t escalate—China doesn’t want to piss off other countries and the US has no reason to fight—prefer this evidence over their aggressive hype.Li ‘15 (Xue; 6/19/2015; director of the department of international strategy at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; The Diplomat; “The US and China Won’t See Military Conflict Over the South China Sea,” http://thediplomat.com/2015/06/the-us-and-china-wont-see-military-conflict-over-the-south-china-sea/)

In a recent piece on the South China Sea disputes, I argued that “the ASEAN claimants are largely staying behind the scenes while external powers take center stage.” Based on recent developments on the South China Sea issue, it seems the U.S. will not only be a ‘director’ but an actor. We saw this clearly on May 20, when the U.S. military sent surveillance aircraft over three islands controlled by Beijing.¶

However, this does not necessary mean the South China Sea will spark a U.S.-China military conflict. ¶ As a global hegemon, the United States’ main interest lies in maintaining the current international order as well as peace and stability.

Regarding the South China Sea, U.S. interests include ensuring peace and stability, freedom of commercial navigation, and military

activities in exclusive economic zones. Maintaining the current balance of power is considered to be a key condition for securing these interests—and a rising China determined to strengthen its hold on South China Sea territory is viewed as a threat to the current balance of power. In response, the U.S. launched its “rebalance to Asia” strategy. In practice, the U.S. has on the one hand strengthened its military presence in Asia-Pacific, while on the other hand supporting ASEAN countries, particularly ASEAN claimants to South China Sea territories.¶ This position has included high-profile rhetoric by U.S. officials. In 2010, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton spoke at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi about the South China Sea, remarks that aligned the U.S. with Southeast Asia’s approach to the disputes. At the 2012 Shangri-La Dialogue, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta explained how the United States will rebalance its force posture as part of playing a “deeper and more enduring partnership role” in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2014, then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called out China’s “destabilizing, unilateral activities asserting its claims in the South China Sea.” His remarks also came at the Shangri-La dialogue, while China’s HY-981 oil rig was deployed in the waters around the Paracel Islands. In 2015, U.S. officials have openly pressured China to scale back its construction work in the Spratly islands and have sent aircraft to patrol over islands in the Spratly that are controlled by China. These measures have brought global attention to the South China Sea.¶ However, if we look at the practical significance of the remarks, there are several limiting factors.

The interests at stake in the South China Sea are not core national interests for the United States. Meanwhile, the U.S.-Philippine alliance is not as important as the U.S.-Japan alliance, and U.S. ties with other ASEAN countries are even weaker . Given U.S.-China mutual economic dependence and China’s comprehensive national strength, the United States is unlikely to go so far as having a military confrontation with China over the South China Sea. Barack Obama, the ‘peace president’ who withdrew the U.S. military from Iraq and Afghanistan, is even less likely to fight with China for the South China Sea.¶ As for the U.S. interests in the region, Washington is surely aware that China has not affected the freedom of commercial navigation in these waters so far. And as I noted in my earlier piece, Beijing is developing its stance and could eventually recognize the legality of military activities in another country’s EEZ (see, for example, the China-Russia joint military exercise in the Mediterranean).¶ Yet when it comes to China’s large-scale land reclamation in the Spratly Islands (and on Woody Island in the

Paracel Islands), Washington worries that Beijing will conduct a series of activities to strengthen its claims on the South China Sea, such as establishing an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) or advocating that others respect a 200-nautical mile (370 km) EEZ from its islands. Meanwhile, the 2014 oil rig incident taught Washington that ASEAN claimants and even ASEAN as a whole could hardly play any effective role in dealing with China’s land reclamation. Hence, the U.S. has no better choice than to become directly involved in this issue.¶ At the beginning, the United States tried to stop China through private diplomatic mediation, yet it soon realized that this approach was not effective in persuading China. So Washington started to tackle the issue in a more aggressive way, such as encouraging India, Japan, ASEAN, the G7, and the European Union to pressure Beijing internationally. Domestically, U.S. officials from different departments and different levels have opposed China’s ‘changing the status quo’ in this area.¶ Since 2015, Washington has increased its pressure on China. It sent the USS Fort Worth, a littoral combat ship, to sail in waters near the Spratly area controlled by Vietnam in early May. U.S. official are also considering sending naval and air patrols within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands controlled by China.¶ Washington has recognized that it could hardly stop China’s construction in Spratly Islands. Therefore, it has opted to portray Beijing as a challenger to the status quo, at the same time moving to prevent China from establishing a South China Sea ADIZ and an EEZ of 200 nautical miles around its artificial islands. This was the logic behind the U.S. sending a P-8A surveillance plane with reporters on board to approach three artificial island built by China. China issued eight warnings to the plane; the U.S. responded by saying the plane was flying through international airspace.¶ Afterwards, U.S. Defense Department spokesman, Army Col. Steve Warren, said there could be a potential “freedom of navigation” exercise within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands. If this approach were adopted, it would back China into a corner; hence it’s a unlikely the Obama administration will make that move.¶ As the U.S. involvement in the South China Sea becomes more aggressive and high-profile, the dynamic relationship between China and the United States comes to affect other layers of the dispute (for example, relations between China and ASEAN claimants or China

and ASEAN in general). To some extent, the South China Sea dispute has developed into a balance of power tug-of-war between the U.S. and China, yet both sides will not take the risk of military confrontation . As Foreign Minister Wang Yi put it in a recent meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, “as for the differences, our attitude is it is okay to have differences as long as we could avoid misunderstanding, and even more importantly, avoid miscalculation.”¶ For its part, China is determined to build artificial islands and several airstrips in the Spratlys, which I argue would help promote the resolution of SCS disputes. But it’s worth noting that if China establishes an ADIZ and advocates a 200 nautical miles EEZ (as the U.S. fears), it would push ASEAN claimants and even non-claimants to stand by the United States. Obviously, the potential consequences contradict with China’s “One Belt, One Road” strategy.¶ In February 2014, in response to reports by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun that a South China Sea ADIZ was imminent, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs hinted that China would not necessarily impose an ADIZ. “The Chinese side has yet to feel any air security threat from the ASEAN countries and is optimistic about its relations with the neighboring countries and the general situation in the South China Sea region,” a spokesperson said.¶ Since the “Belt and Road” is Beijing’s primary strategic agenda for the coming years, it is crucial for China to strengthen its economic relationship with ASEAN on the one hand while reducing ASEAN claimants’ security concerns on the other hand. As a result, it should accelerate the adjustment of its South China Sea policy; clarify China’s stand on the issue, and propose China’s blueprint for resolving the disputes.¶ The South China Sea dispute has developed a seasonal pattern, where the first half of the year is focused on conflicts, and the second half tends to emphasize cooperation. Considering its timing at the peak of ‘conflict season,’ the Shangri-La Dialogue serves as a hot spot. Since 2012, the Shangri-La Dialogue has become a platform for the U.S. and China to tussle on the South China Sea, with the U.S. being proactive and China reactive. (Incidentally, this partly explains why China is upgrading Xiangshan Forum as an alternative dialogue platform). This year was no exception, as the U.S. worked hard to draw the world’s attention to the

Shangri-La Dialogue this year.¶ But audiences should be aware that

aggressive statements at the Shangri-La Dialogue are not totally representative of U.S.-China relations . After all, these statements are made by military rather than political elites. Cooperation will be the key when the U.S. and China have their Strategic and Economic Dialogue in late June, with the ASEAN Regional Forum and other meetings following later this summer.

DA – Elections

1NC LinkTrump will weaponize BIT. Ulsterman ’15 – journalist for DC Whispers, (D.W., “MUST READ: Trump Was Right On China & The TPP Agreement,” http://dcwhispers.com/must-read-trump-was-right-on-china-the-tpp-agreement/, DS)

“…many TPP countries already have free-trade agreements with China. Even the United States is negotiating a bilateral investment treaty with China…In the shorter run, China is likely to seek to fast-track its own favoured free-trade accord – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which comprises the 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries plus China, South Korea, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand. This 16-country bloc would be a larger grouping than the TPP and include the world’s two most populous countries, China and India.” What the above outlines is the very thing Donald Trump said – China is once again outsmarting us and sneaking in through the back door. It should also be noted that TPP rules include strict environmental regulations – primarily for the United States and other more developed nations. China wanted nothing to do with such economically prohibitive rules and so has, and continues to make trade agreements of its own accord which includes getting a bilateral agreement with the United States.

DA – ISDS

1NCISDS cases increasing now but it’s on the brink – mostly due to bilateral investment treaties.Sheehan 6/8 – Reporter for Law 360 (Hannah, “UN Says Investor-State Dispute Settlement Cases Growing”, http://www.law360.com/articles/804975/un-says-investor-state-dispute-settlement-cases-growing, 6-8-16)

Treaty-based investor-state dispute settlements are on the rise, with a record high of 70 cases filed in 2015 that brought the total number of ISDS claims to nearly 700, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said Wednesday. In its June issues note on ISDS cases, the UN body said the overall number of publicly known claims involving ISDS provisions, which provide legal rights to investors in a country to challenge its government, reached 696 in 2015. The majority of the 444 such proceedings that concluded last year relied on bilateral investment treaties dating back to the 1990s, and most were settled in favor of a sovereign state, according to UNCTAD. The body said the Energy Charter Treaty of 1994 was the most frequently invoked agreement investor-state dispute settlement cases. ISDS provisions in trade agreements have become the subject of an acrimonious global public debate amid growing scrutiny of the mechanism that critics have said can be used to impede sovereign rights and hinder the implementation of government programs.

US-China BIT will include ISDS.IISD 5/16 - An independent, non-profit organisation that provides practical solutions to the challenge of integrating environmental and social priorities with economic development (International Institute for Sustainable Development, “China–United States BIT: ISDS to be included; ongoing negotiations on negative lists”, https://www.iisd.org/itn/2016/05/16/china-united-states-bit-isds-to-be-included-ongoing-negotiations-on-negative-lists/, 5-16-16)

Since 2008, China and the United States have undergone 24 negotiation rounds for a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). On March 3, 2016, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman noted that the “high standard” BIT being negotiated is “in many respects similar to the investment chapter of TPP.” Echoing Froman’s statement, on March 23, Chen Deming—China’s former Minister of Commerce—announced that the two countries have resolved some key roadblocks in the negotiations and agreed to rely on international arbitration to resolve investor–state disputes. However, Chen also acknowledged that some major conflicts remain, mainly over the negative list on market access. Both parties hope to conclude negotiations before the end of President Obama’s term, and preferably in August or September, before the U.S. presidential election enters into a critical stage.

Empirics prove ISDS hurts environmental regulatory standardsFOEE No Date -- the European branch of the world's largest grassroots environmental network raises public awareness of environmental issues;

campaigns for sustainable solutions for the most pressing environmental and social challenges threatening people and planet (Friends of The Earth Europe, “Unfair privileges for investors”, https://www.foeeurope.org/isds)

Experience of settled ISDS cases tells us that this system does negatively impact regulatory standards. Two emblematic cases illustrate this threat very well: Vattenfall I vs Germany: In 2009, Swedish energy company Vattenfall started an ISDS procedure against Germany. Vattenfall had engaged in the construction of a coal fired power plant in Hamburg-Moorburg, located on the Elbe river. When Hamburg's Environmental Authority imposed quality controls for the waste waters released into the river from the power plant, Vattenfall claimed that those standards made the investment project unviable. Using ISDS provisions, the company asked Germany for compensation totalling €1.4 billion. The case was eventually settled when the City of Hamburg agreed to lower the environmental requirements previously set. Bilcon vs Canada: In March 2015, the US company Bilcon successfully sued the Canadian government for not allowing it to build a quarry and marine terminal in an ecologically sensitive coastal area in eastern Canada. The government decision had followed the recommendation of an environmental assessment panel and was based on the project's likely negative environmental impacts. Bilcon won the case and is now seeking over US$300 million in damages, with the exact amount to be decided by a tribunal. One of the arbitrators, who did not agree with the panel's majority verdict, said that the decision "will create a chill on the operation of environmental review panels."

Environmental impacts outweigh – there’s an invisible threshold and the impact is irreversible.Diner ‘94 – PhD from Cal Tech and now a senior research scientist at NASA, (Major David N, “The Army and The Endangered Species Act: Who's Endangering Whom?”, DS)

The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out – by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. 68 2.Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, 69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services-- pollution control, 70oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation.71 3.Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. 72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. 73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew 74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most,

species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. 75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. 76 4.Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. 77As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, 80 mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

2NC – LinkIt’s factually true – the plan relies on ISDS. Hufabuer ’15 – Reginald Jones Senior Fellow since 1992, was formerly the Maurice Greenberg Chair and Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (1996–98), the Marcus Wallenberg Professor of International Finance Diplomacy at Georgetown University (1985–92), senior fellow at the Institute (1981–85), deputy director of the International Law Institute at Georgetown University (1979–81); deputy assistant secretary for international trade and investment policy of the US Treasury (1977–79); and director of the international tax staff at the Treasury (1974–76), (Gary Clyde, “TOWARD A US-CHINA INVESTMENT TREATY,” https://piie.com/publications/briefings/piieb15-1.pdf, DS)

That said, BITs negotiated by the United States and China differ markedly in terms of the types of investments covered, the rules applied to investment policies, and the enforcement provisions to protect investor rights. For the United States, the 2012 revision of the US model BIT sets out a detailed and broad-ranging template for treaty rights and obligations that US offi cials expect their partners to undertake and enforce in all bilateral investment pacts.6 The US model BIT sets a high bar in requiring extensive obligations on investment policies, investor rights and protections that open up meaningful new market access opportunities, and a robust investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism.

Impact Module – Economy ISDS cedes power to corporations allowing them to hold citizens’ hostage placing a huge economic burden on taxpayersHamrick 3/6 – Reporter for Daily news quoting Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, an American economist and a professor at Columbia University (Mark, “Forget ISIS, worry about ISDS foreign trade pact clause, economists say”, http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/forget-isis-worry-isds-foreign-trade-pact-clause-article-1.2557485, 3-6-16)

What is it that has put Stiglitz, a professor at New York's Columbia University, on the warpath? It is the obscure treaty enforcement mechanism called the Investor-State Dispute Settlement, referred to by those "in the know" as "ISDS." Stiglitz told reporters recently at a National Press Club event (which I moderated) that the ISDS clause within the pact would allow foreign firms in America to sue "when the U.S. government passes a regulation that they think hurts their profits." He notes that American firms would not have this power under the law. Stiglitz calls it "fundamental discrimination against Americans, particularly small businesses." How might this work if Congress were to ratify the trade agreement? Stiglitz makes an analogy comparing to what might have happened decades ago when asbestos was found to be a health risk and banned. If “the U.S. government would have to compensate any foreign-owned asbestos company" for future lost profits — as under the TPP — in effect, he says companies would have to be "compensated for not killing people or for not destroying their lives." And that means taxpayers would be on the hook for billions of dollars.

Impact – Court LegitimacyISDS kills the legitimacy of US court systemsIkenson ‘14 – director of Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies (Daniel J. "A Compromise to Advance the Trade Agenda: Purge Negotiations of Investor-State Dispute Settlement," Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/compromise-advance-trade-agenda-purge-negotiations-investor-state)

U.S. laws and regulations will be exposed to ISDS challenges with increasing frequency. The number of cases is on the rise. Most claims have been brought against developing countries—with Argentina, Venezuela, and Ecuador leading the pack—but the United States is the eighth-largest target, having been the subject of 15 claims over the years.11 As the percentage of global Fortune 500 companies domiciled outside the United States continues to increase, U.S. laws and regulations are likely to come under greater scrutiny. The specter of foreign companies prevailing in challenges of U.S. laws outside the U.S. legal system would frustrate further the task of selling trade to a skeptical public and would reward trade critics who have been warning of just such an outcome for many years. Investor-State Dispute Settlement raises concerns about domestic sovereignty. Among recent cases highlighting these tensions is a suit brought by Philip Morris, Inc. against the Australian government for a law requiring that cigarettes be sold in plain packaging. Philip Morris claims that the requirement deprives it of its property (trademarks, logos, and labels), which is important for brand recognition and without which its revenues will decrease. Philip Morris may have a legitimate claim, but the optics will not be favorable for trade agreements if the company prevails. Meanwhile, growing concerns in Europe about the vulnerabilities of environmental and public-safety laws to challenges by foreign corporations—sparked, in part, by a case brought by a Swedish energy company against Germany for its decision to abandon nuclear power—have led the EU to suspend ISDS negotiations in the TTIP for a period of three months, as it collects and evaluates public comments and reconsiders its position. Realistically, it is difficult to conceive of any benefits to including ISDS provisions in the TTIP, given the advanced legal systems in the United States and Europe, unless the wave of the economic future is expected to arrive in a tsunami of international litigation

Impact – Laundry ListPlan is horrible –laundry list of reasons. Drake ‘13 –He’s a Trade & Globalization Policy Specialist at the AFL-CIO, who has a BA, JD, and MPP from UCLA http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/(author)/Celeste%20Drake) A.S.The United States is negotiating from a “model BIT” (and unlike other trade negotiations, this sample

text is public, so we know for the most part what a BIT with China would look like). The model BIT does not effectively protect fundamental labor rights, including freedom of association, collective bargaining and freedom from forced labor. Given that the Chinese government does not adequately protect its workers in these critical areas, making it easier for U.S.-based companies to invest in China could exacerbate, rather than improve labor abuses in China. U.S. companies attracted to China by the prospect of a low-labor rights regime could actually make our trade deficit with China worse if they export their artificially cheaper products to the United States, displacing products from the United States or other countries. This practice is sometimes called “social dumping.” Without adequate and effective labor protections, global corporations essentially pit both countries against each another in a competition to lower their costs, which suppresses wages and working conditions for all. This is sometimes called the “race to the bottom.” The model BIT contains investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS), a process that allows foreign investors who think a law or regulation may impact the value of its investment to skip a country’s domestic courts and bring

their claims to a private panel (this process is called arbitration). In other words , foreign investors can bypass state and federal courts (the courts where all U.S.-owned businesses have to bring their claims) and instead pursue their legal claims in front of undemocratic, unaccountable panels of attorneys—not judges. Most of the attorneys who form the arbitration panels come from elite law firms, and alternate between acting as panelists and acting as mouthpieces for global investors. ISDS has been used to challenge democratically-enacted laws designed to promote public good. When corporations win, citizens lose, either because their government has to fork over precious taxpayer dollars to pay off the investor, or because the government

agrees to withdraw the law or regulation at issue. Despite the fact that the U.S. government and various state governments already have spent millions defending ISDS claims,

the U.S. government still included it in the model BIT. In the China context, state-owned enterprises, which are essentially an arm of the Chinese government, could use ISDS. This would allow a foreign country to use what is supposed to be a commercial process to engage in what should be resolved through diplomacy. The model BIT would do nothing to address the Chinese government’s record of violating trade commitments. Since it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Chinese government has ignored commitments regarding market access for U.S. firms; enforcement of intellectual property rights; subsidies; dumping; export restrictions; currency exchange manipulation; and according equal status to national and foreign products. The U.S. government has had to resort to legal challenges over a wide variety of infractions, from chicken feet to electronic payment processing to rare earth minerals. U.S. workers already have been hurt by trade with China—losing more than 2.7 million jobs since 2001 and having their wages suppressed—by $37.0 billion in lost wages in 2011 alone. Workers cannot afford more bad trade policy decisions.

DA – Offshoring

1NCManufacturing jobs that went offshore are coming back to the U.S. now.Moser and Kelly ’15 – (Harry Moser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative, president, chairman and then chairman emeritus of GF AgieCharmilles, participated actively in President Obama’s Jan 11, 2012, Insourcing Forum at the White House, testified at a Congressional hearing on reshoring and manufacturing, and inducted into the 2010 IndustryWeek Manufacturing Hall of Fame, Millar Kelly, “Reshoring and Total Cost of Ownership”, http://www.sdcexec.com/article/12049748/positive-trends-at-home-bring-manufacturing-jobs-back-from-overseas-as-rush-to-offshore-slows)

Data from the Reshoring Initiative shows that offshoring of U.S. manufacturing is now in balance with reshoring. Since 2003, new offshoring is down by 70 to 80 percent and new reshoring is up by 1,500 percent. The most important accomplishment is that the net-loss of 100,000-plus manufacturing jobs each year has ended. New reshoring is now balancing new offshoring at about 40,000 manufacturing jobs/year, resulting in the first neutral year of offshoring job loss/gain in the last 20—the bleeding has stopped! As of October 2014, about 170,000 manufacturing jobs have been brought to the U.S. from offshore (400,000 total jobs when including the manufacturing multiplier effect of approximately 1.4). That job gain is the result of both new reshoring—the return of manufacturing work that was previously produced offshore—and FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in the manufacturing sector. These trends represent about 25 percent of the total increase in U.S. manufacturing jobs since the low in February 2010[1]. For the economy, the continued challenge is to bring back another 3-4 million manufacturing jobs that are still offshore. Meeting this challenge requires that the positive trends that are already bringing work back, such as rising costs offshore and lower energy costs at home, continue. Additionally, the U.S. can improve its competitiveness, in the following manner:

BIT undercuts the US economy – Chinese corporations flood the domestic market with low-priced goods and legal protections abroad incentivizes outsourcing.Dayen ’16 - contributing writer to Salon.com who also writes for The Intercept, The New Republic, and The Fiscal Times, (David, “The Job-Killing Trade Deal You’ve Never Heard Of: The China Bilateral Investment Treaty,” http://prospect.org/article/job-killing-trade-deal-you%E2%80%99ve-never-heard-china-bilateral-investment-treaty, DS)

The U.S. has implemented 41 BITs over the years, as well as investment chapters in a dozen free-trade agreements. But the U.S. already attracts more foreign direct investment than any country in the world, with $168 billion flowing in just in 2012. That includes investments from countries that until now have lacked the protections of a BIT, like China. “It’s pitched as a way to

promote investment,” said Celeste Drake, trade and globalization policy specialist at the AFL-CIO. “We’re one of the top countries for foreign investment anyway. We don’t need to give away rights for foreign investors.” Few investors have the capital to undertake and manage businesses overseas. Invariably, large multinational corporations, or investment vehicles like hedge funds and private equity firms, engage in foreign direct investment. And a BIT offers them the ability to lock in profits while neutralizing the risks that go along with investing abroad. For example, U.S. companies operating in China encounter local corruption, preferential treatment for their domestic producers, intellectual property theft, and ever-changing regulatory demands. The BIT sweeps away such hurdles, and allows foreign investors to use ISDS to recoup lost profits if foreign governments use those maneuvers to hamper their business. It effectively removes American companies’ one big motivation for keeping manufacturing stateside—our relatively stable judicial and regulatory systems and rule of law. If companies can get all that guaranteed in China, there’s nothing keeping their factories here. The BIT, then, is a recipe for more outsourcing. China currently protects many of its industries by excluding foreign investment in certain sectors. The key to the BIT is what’s known in trade deal parlance as the “negative list”—a list of which sectors would stay excluded. U.S. corporations want to whittle down that list and pry open more sectors where they can invest in China, and subsequently move production overseas. On the flip side, there’s already substantial Chinese investment in the U.S.—more than U.S. investment in China, in fact—but we don’t have good information on its impact. Many Chinese companies are state-owned or state-influenced, subsidized from home, and freed from having to run an immediate profit. Michael Wessel, a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, warns that Chinese-subsidized firms could squeeze domestic competitors by undercutting them on price. Despite this uncertainty, Wessel contends that not single case study on Chinese-invested firms has been undertaken by an independent expert. “We have no idea what Chinese companies are doing in the U.S.,” he says. “Not all investment has [the] same impact. Our negotiators are flying blind.”

Manufacturing is critical to technology and innovation and the overall economyEttlinger and Gordon 11 -- *Vice President for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, **Vice President for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress (Michael and Kate, “The Importance and Promise of American Manufacturing”, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/04/pdf/manufacturing.pdf)

Manufacturing is critically important to the American economy. For generations, the strength of our country rested on the power of our factory floors—both the machines and the men and women who worked them. We need manufacturing to continue to be a bedrock of strength for generations to come. Manufacturing is woven into the structure of our economy: Its importance goes far beyond what happens behind the factory gates. The strength or weakness of American manufacturing carries implications for the entire economy, our national security , and the well-being of all Americans. Manufacturing

today accounts for 12 percent of the U.S. economy and about 11   percent of the private-sector workforce. But its significance is even greater than these numbers would suggest. The direct impact of manufacturing is only a part of the picture. First, jobs in the manufacturing sector are good middle-class jobs for millions of Americans. Those jobs serve an important role, offering economic opportunity to hard-working, middle-skill workers. This creates upward mobility and broadens and strengthens the middle class to the benefit of the entire economy. What’s more, U.S.-based manufacturing underpins a broad range of jobs that are quite different from the usual image of manufacturing. These are higher-skill service jobs that include the accountants, bankers, and lawyers that are associated with any industry, as well as a broad range of other jobs including basic research and technology development, product and process engineering and design, operations and maintenance, transportation, testing, and lab work.

Many of these jobs are critical to American technology and innovation leadership . The problem today is this: Many multinational corporations may for a period keep these higher-skill jobs here at home while they move basic manufacturing elsewhere in response to other countries’ subsidies, the search for cheaper labor costs, and the desire for more direct access to overseas markets, but eventually many of these service jobs will follow. When the basic manufacturing leaves, the feedback loop from the manufacturing floor to the rest of a manufacturing operation—a critical element in the innovative process—is eventually broken. To maintain that feedback loop, companies need to move higher-skill jobs to where they do their manufacturing. And with those jobs goes American leadership in technology and innovation. This is why having a critical mass of both manufacturing and associated service jobs in the U nited S tates matters. The “industrial commons” that comes from the crossfertilization and engagement of a community of

experts in industry, academia, and government is vital to our nation’s economic competitiveness . Manufacturing also is important for the nation’s economic stability. The experience of the Great Recession exemplifies this point. Although manufacturing plunged in 2008 and early 2009 along with the rest of the economy, it is on the rebound today while other key economic sectors, such as construction, still languish. Diversity in the economy is important—and manufacturing is a particularly important part of the mix. Although manufacturing is certainly affected by broader economic events, the sector’s internal diversity—supplying consumer goods as well as industrial goods, serving both domestic and external markets— gives it great potential resiliency. Finally, supplying our own needs through a strong domestic manufacturing sector protects us from international economic and political disruptions. This is most obviously important in the realm of national security, even narrowly defined as matters related to military strength, where the risk of a weak manufacturing capability is obvious. But overreliance on imports and substantial manufacturing trade deficits weaken us in many ways, making us vulnerable to everything from exchange rate fluctuations to trade embargoes to natural disasters. None of this matters, of course, if American manufacturing is too far gone to save. But American manufacturing is, in fact, a success story and it is not a story approaching its end. Notwithstanding employment losses and the relative rise of manufacturing in other countries, the United States led the world in manufacturing value added in 2008. Moreover, the United States ranked third in manufacturing exports in 2008, behind only China and Germany and ahead of Japan and France. The United States will never again dominate world manufacturing the way it did in the decades immediately following World War II (in fact no country is likely to ever do so again, barring cataclysm) but manufacturing is, can, and should remain an important part of our economic future. There are many other players in the game now but that doesn’t mean America must leave the field. The purpose of this report is to examine where the United States remains competitive in manufacturing at home and abroad. But we begin our analysis by detailing why manufacturing remains so important to our economy, our society, our national security, and our ability to remain the

world’s science and innovation leader in the 21st century. Then we look at our domestic manufacturing base and our top manufacturing export sectors to gauge where U.S. manufacturing remains competitive. This report does not, it should be said up front, outline a manufacturing policy agenda. There is a broad range of views on what U.S. policy toward manufacturing should be. Some believe, although most say this quietly, that U.S. manufacturing is a lost cause and, as such, should be abandoned. Others, however, see U.S.-based manufacturing as of continuing importance. These people argue that our relatively high labor costs and the growth of manufacturing elsewhere do not sound the death knell. They see our nation as still a great manufacturer. But even among those who still believe in manufacturing, there is a wide range of views on what should be done to nurture it. There are those who see free trade agreements as a way to help manufacturing by boosting exports and those who see those same agreements as subjecting U.S. manufacturers producing for the U.S. market to unfair competition. There are those who see the need for “industrial policy”—a concerted effort to focus our national resources on industries that we believe will be the key manufacturing areas of the future—and those who see any attempt by the government to “pick winners and losers” as foolhardy and doomed to misallocate economic resources and thus undermine the efficiency of our economy. Other policy issues include the importance of investing in human capital to make U.S. workers more productive, investing in basic research so the big new ideas come from the United States, and a range of assistance that can be provided to manufacturing facilities and corporations. This report does not parse through the variety of policy paths forward. Instead, we argue the threshold question: whether we, as a nation, should respond to the challenges now facing U.S. manufacturing. Our central question is this: Does domestic manufacturing matter and is there something left to fight for? Our answer is a resounding “yes.”

Decline in economic primacy risks a shift to multipolarity – threatens proliferation and great power war.Khalilzad ’11 – Former US Ambassador to the Middle East, Former Director of Policy Planning at the Department of Defense, (Zalmay, “The Economy and National Security,” http://www.nationalreview.com/articl/259024/conomy-and-national-security-zalmay-khalilzad)

Today, economic and fiscal trends pose the most severe long-term threat to the United States’ position as global leader. While the United States suffers from fiscal imbalances and low economic growth, the economies of rival powers are developing rapidly. The continuation of these two trends could lead to a shift from American primacy toward a multi-polar global system, leading in turn to increased geopolitical rivalry and even war among the great powers. The current recession is the result of a deep financial crisis, not a mere fluctuation in the business cycle. Recovery is likely to be protracted. The crisis was preceded by the buildup over two decades of enormous amounts of debt throughout the U.S. economy — ultimately totaling almost 350 percent of GDP — and the development of credit-fueled asset bubbles, particularly in the housing sector. When the bubbles burst, huge amounts of wealth were destroyed, and unemployment rose to over 10 percent. The decline of tax revenues and massive countercyclical spending put the U.S. government on an unsustainable fiscal path. Publicly held national debt rose from 38 to over 60 percent of GDP in three years. Without faster economic growth and actions to reduce deficits, publicly held national debt is projected to reach dangerous proportions. If interest rates were to rise significantly, annual interest payments — which already are larger than the defense budget — would crowd out other spending or require substantial tax increases that would undercut economic growth. Even worse, if unanticipated events trigger what economists call a “sudden stop” in credit markets for U.S. debt, the United States would be unable to roll over its outstanding obligations, precipitating a sovereign-debt crisis that would almost certainly compel a radical retrenchment of the United States internationally. Such scenarios would reshape the international order. It was the economic devastation of Britain and France during World War II, as well as the rise of other powers, that led both countries to relinquish their empires. In the late 1960s, British leaders concluded that they lacked the economic capacity to maintain a presence “east of Suez.” Soviet economic weakness, which crystallized under Gorbachev, contributed to their decisions to withdraw from Afghanistan, abandon Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and allow the

Soviet Union to fragment. If the U.S. debt problem goes critical, the United States would be compelled to retrench, reducing its military spending and shedding international commitments. We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation. The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both world wars. American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket, regional powers could rearm in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of arms races, miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make aggressive moves in their regions. As rival powers rise, Asia in particular is likely to emerge as a zone of great-power competition. Beijing’s economic rise has enabled a dramatic military buildup focused on acquisitions of naval, cruise, and ballistic missiles, long-range stealth aircraft, and anti-satellite capabilities. China’s strategic modernization is aimed, ultimately, at denying the United States access to the seas around China. Even as cooperative economic ties in the region have grown, China’s expansive territorial claims — and provocative statements and actions following crises in Korea and incidents at sea — have roiled its relations with South Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asian states. Still, the United States is the most significant barrier facing Chinese hegemony and aggression. Given the risks, the United States must focus on restoring its economic and fiscal condition while checking and managing the rise of potential adversarial regional powers such as China. While we face significant challenges, the U.S. economy still accounts for over 20 percent of the world’s GDP. American institutions — particularly those providing enforceable rule of law — set it apart from all the rising powers. Social cohesion underwrites political stability. U.S. demographic trends are healthier than those of any other developed country. A culture of innovation, excellent institutions of higher education, and a vital sector of small and medium-sized enterprises propel the U.S. economy in ways difficult to quantify. Historically, Americans have responded pragmatically, and sometimes through trial and error, to work our way through the kind of crisis that we face today.

2NC – UQManufacturing jobs are coming back to the U.S.Sweeney ‘15 – (Chris Sweeney, Crain News Service, “Reshoring Helps Manufacturing rebound”, Tire Business, http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20150320/NEWS/150329994/reshoring-helps-fuel-manufacturing-rebound)AKRON (March 20, 2015) — Manufacturing in America has not reached pre-recession levels yet. Slowly but surely, however, it is turning around.¶ According to the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), the U.S. has added about 786,000 manufacturing jobs since losing about 2.3 million in the last recession. And while reshoring has not made a widespread impact on that figure, it is doing its part to help.¶ AAM President Scott Paul said it is hard to say precisely how much of those 786,000 jobs were created as a result of reshoring, but the Reshoring Initiative estimates anywhere from 30,000 to 40,000 jobs were reshored in 2013, compared to about the same amount being offshored. While the two negate one another, it is better than 2003, when the Initiative said about 150,000 jobs were offshored compared to about 2,000 reshored.¶ Reshoring has helped stop the bleeding. And with wages around the world increasing, the U.S. could turn the scales in the next five to 10 years.

2NC – LinkThe plan eliminates incentives for US companies to stay domestically – that causes offshoring.Wessel ’15 - an original member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, (Michael, “Why the U.S. Should Be Wary of Chinese Money,” http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/xi-jinping-chinese-investment-213185, DS)

From the BIT to economic espionage to overcapacity China’s playing by a different set of rules. By now, we should have learned that further trade deals and investment treaties will only lead to more outsourcing of production and loss of jobs. China’s playing to win and so should the United States. When China understands that the U.S. will stand up when they don’t open up their markets and that we will respond forcefully to rule breaking and upsetting international norms, we may be able to manage our differences. Until then we should stop hoping that China wants to be more like us.

2NC – ISDS LinkISDS subsidizes outsourcing and kills American JobsIkenson ‘14 – director of Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies (Daniel J. "A Compromise to Advance the Trade Agenda: Purge Negotiations of Investor-State Dispute Settlement," Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/compromise-advance-trade-agenda-purge-negotiations-investor-state)

Third, ISDS encourages “discretionary” outsourcing. In the global competition to attract investment from the world’s best companies, the United States has some enormous advantages. For many decades, the United States has been the world’s premier destination for foreign direct investment. But in recent years, the United States has been slipping in a number of important investment-location decision criteria and, accordingly, its share of global foreign direct investment has declined from 39 percent in 1999 to 17 percent in 2011.8 While ISDS may benefit U.S. companies looking to invest abroad, it neutralizes what was once a big U.S. advantage in the competition to attract investment. Respect for property rights and the rule of law have been relative U.S. strengths, but ISDS mitigates those U.S. advantages. Access to ISDS could be the decisive factor in a company’s decision to invest in a research center in Brazil, instead of the United States. Why should U.S. policy reflect greater concern for the operations of U.S. companies abroad than for the operations of U.S. and foreign companies in the United States? Why should ISDS effectively subsidize outsour52555525525555551cing, and not insourcing? To be sure, success abroad and success at home are closely correlated. Companies must be able to invest abroad to compete there, and the success of those foreign affiliates tends to be reflected in the performance of the parent companies at home.9 But there is a crucial distinction between “discretionary” and “nondiscretionary” outsourcing. “Discretionary” outsourcing is investment that goes abroad, but doesn’t really have to. It is investment in activities that could be performed competitively in the United States, but is chased away by policies that make U.S. investment relatively more expensive. “Nondiscretionary” outsourcing is investment in activities that requires a foreign presence. While we should not denigrate, punish, or tax foreign outsourcing, neither should we subsidize it, and ISDS subsidizes discretionary outsourcing.

2NC Link – SOEsBIT enables Chinese SOEs to crowd out American companies – hurts US jobs and businessChow 14 -- the Frank E. and Virginia H. Bazler Chair in Business Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of international trade law, international business transactions, international intellectual property, and the law of China (Daniel C.K., “Why China Wants a Bilateral Investment Treaty with the United States”, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2479893&download=yes//bj)

First, a BIT may allow China to expand the reach and power of China’s SOEs, which are likely to benefit the most from the BIT. China has a national policy of promoting SOEs to become “National Champions” that can compete with the largest multinational companies in the world.29 Already three of the ten largest companies by revenue in Fortune’s Global 500 are now from China and China leads the list of newcomers to the Global 500 in 2014 with seven of the twenty three new companies.30 The United States currently has federal laws that subject FDI by Chinese SOEs to scrutiny and allows the United States to unilaterally block such investments to protect the U.S. national interest. 31 In addition, U.S. politicians can informally pressure U.S. and Chinese companies to abandon various FDI projects. For example, in 2005, the U.S. Congress, citing national security concerns, pressured a Chinese state-owned oil company to withdraw its bid to purchase Unocal, a U.S. energy company.32 The United States’ concern is that SOEs are instruments of the State and the Communist Party and make their decisions in accordance with policy goals of the State-Party and could one day threaten the economic viability of U.S. firms at home and abroad.33 China replies that SOEs make decisions based solely upon commercial considerations.34 A later section of this article will examine this issue in further detail,35 but for now, it is important to emphasize that once China has a BIT with the United States, it could become more difficult for the U.S. government to block FDI by Chinese SOEs in the United States. Under the current 2012 Model BIT used by the United States in negotiating all of its BITs with foreign partners, foreign investors, including those from China, will acquire rights and protections that China does not enjoy under current U.S. law. 36 These new rights and protections could prevent the United States from unilaterally blocking FDI projects by Chinese SOEs.37 Moreover, not only do BITs contain important new rights and protections for foreign investors, but the Model BIT also contains a dispute resolution mechanism in which an international tribunal, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), will decide investment disputes by binding arbitration.38 In other words, while the United States currently has the final say on whether to approve a Chinese investment (just as the Chinese government has the final say over FDI in China), once the BIT comes into effect, the final determination could be in the hands of an international, and presumably more neutral, tribunal.

2NC I/L – CompetitivenessOutsourcing undermines US competitiveness. Roberts ’16 – former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, (Dr. Paul Craig, “The Offshore Outsourcing of American Jobs: A Greater Threat Than Terrorism,” http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-offshore-outsourcing-of-american-jobs-a-greater-threat-than-terrorism/18725, DS)

Outsourcing forces Americans to “compete head-to-head with foreign workers” by “undermining US workers’ primary competitive advantage over foreign workers: their physical presence in the US” and “by providing those overseas workers with the same technologies.” The result is a lose-lose situation for American employees, American businesses, and the American government. Outsourcing has brought about record unemployment in engineering fields and a major drop in university enrollments in technical and scientific disciplines. Even many of the remaining jobs are being filled by lower paid foreigners brought in on H-1b and L-1 visas. American employees are discharged after being forced to train their foreign replacements. US corporations justify their offshore operations as essential to gain a foothold in emerging Asian markets. The Hira brothers believe this is self-delusion. “There is no evidence that they will be able to outcompete local Chinese and Indian companies, who are very rapidly assimilating the technology and know-how from the local US plants. In fact, studies show that Indian IT companies have been consistently outcompeting their US counterparts, even in US markets. Thus, it is time for CEOs to start thinking about whether they are fine with their own jobs being outsourced as well.” The authors note that the national security implications of outsourcing “have been largely ignored.” Outsourcing is rapidly eroding America’s superpower status. Beginning in 2002 the US began running trade deficits in advanced technology products with Asia, Mexico and Ireland. As these countries are not leaders in advanced technology, the deficits obviously stem from US offshore manufacturing. In effect, the US is giving away its technology, which is rapidly being captured, while US firms reduce themselves to a brand name with a sales force. In an appendix, the authors provide a devastating expose of the three “studies” that have been used to silence doubts about offshore outsourcing-the Global Insight study (March 2004) for the Information Technology Association of America, the Catherine Mann study (December 2003) for the Institute for International Economics, and the McKinsey Global Institute study (August 2003). The ITAA is a lobbying group for outsourcing. The ITAA spun the results of the study by releasing only the executive summary to reporters who agreed not to seek outside opinion prior to writing their stories. Mann’s study is “an unreasonably optimistic forecast based on faulty logic and a poor understanding of technology and strategy.” The McKinsey report “should be viewed as a self-interested lobbying document that presents an unrealistically optimistic estimate of the impact of offshore outsourcing and an undeveloped and politically unviable solution to the problems they identify.” Outsourcing America is a powerful work. Only fools will continue clinging to the premise that outsourcing is good for America.

2NC I/L – EconomyManufacturing uniquely allows for economic stability due to internal diversity – prevents severe economic downturn. Ettlinger and Gordon 11 -- *Vice President for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, **Vice President for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress (Michael and Kate, “The Importance and Promise of American Manufacturing”, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/04/pdf/manufacturing.pdf)

Beyond innovation and competitiveness, basing manufacturing in the United States also is important to our overall national and economic security. The most clear-cut example of this, of course, is the importance of being able to produce for the needs of our armed forces. The importance of domestic capabilities in defense manufacturing is obvious—one doesn’t want to be dependent on foreign suppliers in a time of conflict. Equally obvious is the importance of keeping innovations in military technology close to home. This is underscored by a list kept by the State Department known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, which designates the manufactured goods and services deemed to be “defense articles” and tightly controls their export and import.9 The list includes a range of items from firearms and nuclear weapons systems to less obvious items like energy conversion devices that are specifically designed for military application.10 Beyond defense, however, manufacturing offers a greater degree of economic security. The simple existence of the sector helps balance out other sectors to create a more stable economy overall.11 Had, for example, manufacturing been a larger share of the economy at the time of the recent housing and financial crises, the fragility of those two sectors would not have been quite as devastating to the overall economy.12 Indeed, when multilateral development banks such as the World Bank Group fund international projects in the developing world, they often point to the importance of a “diverse economy”—that is, an economy based on a wide range of profitable sectors, not just a few—as essential to sustained, broad-based economic growth. The same holds true for industrialized nations. This kind of analysis, however, is seldom done in the United States at the national level because we have had a diverse economy overall. Individual regions and states, however, can be significantly less diversified.13 For this reason, states often develop economic plans aimed at making their economies more diverse. For instance, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm specifically set out to diversify her state’s economy away from traditional auto manufacturing and into other sectors such as solar technology, wave power, and electric drive trains. This kind of economic development strategy is rarely tried at the national level, however, perhaps due to concerns about excess involvement of government in the operation of the economy. Still, research abroad and at the regional level in the United States makes clear that putting too many of our eggs in one sectoral basket is a bad bet for long-term stability.14 Manufacturing, like any sector, is affected by economywide events, but manufacturing’s internal diversity—supplying consumer goods as well as industrial goods, serving both domestic and external markets—gives it great potential resiliency in addition to simply adding one more leg for the broader economy to stand on.

2NC Scenario – Tech LeadershipOffshoring results in a decline in jobs and leads to an erosion of innovation and technological advancementEttlinger and Gordon 11 -- *Vice President for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, **Vice President for Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress (Michael and Kate, “The Importance and Promise of American Manufacturing”, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/04/pdf/manufacturing.pdf)

So manufacturing creates jobs, not just in the manufacturing sector but in a host of other occupations and industries. But that doesn’t settle the issue of the importance of having actual, physical manufacturing take place in the United States. The question remains, can manufacturing happen in, say, China, but still create associated high-quality service jobs here at home? The answer is that it is, indeed, important that the actual, physical manufacturing occur here. Made in America matters. When shop floor manufacturing jobs depart, other jobs go with them—and with those jobs goes the ability to create and innovate. Declines in the U.S. manufacturing sector mean declines in our nation’s overall “industrial commons”—a set of related industries and activities including those in the highly prized knowledgebased economy. According to Harvard economist Gary Pisano, when manufacturing moves overseas so does this industrial commons, meaning that we lose not only production prowess but also the process innovation that comes from colocating research and development, design, engineering, and manufacturing. “In addition to undermining the ability of the United States to manufacture hightech products, the erosion of the industrial commons has seriously damaged the country’s ability to invent new ones,” writes Pisano in a recent Harvard Business Journal online debate.3 With the loss of the commons and the jobs comes a decline in U.S. workforce skills and the ability to invent and innovate that can only come from the hands-on experience of working in an industry.4 The upshot: If we lose our ability to make things, we may well lose our ability to invent them. There is strong anecdotal evidence that if we cede production on a process invented in the United States then we may lose future iterations of innovation of that process. Solar panels are one example. Invented in New Jersey at Bell Laboratories in 1954, the production of solar photovoltaic panels has largely moved overseas (China is currently the world’s largest producer), and most new innovations in panel production, such as process improvements that make the panels far more powerful by altering their electrical properties, are happening outside of our nation.5 Interestingly, this is less true for nonpanel solar power innovations, such as the holographic solar applications pioneered by small startups in Arizona and New York, possibly because these new innovations are still cutting-edge and not yet in commercial production at any real scale.6 Once these technologies do scale up, however, they too may be produced and improved overseas. One industry where the spatial relationship between manufacturing and innovation is most clearly shown by empirical data is the optoelectronics industry, which includes products such as lasers and fiber-optic telecommunications. In a recent set of studies, Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Erica Fuchs examined the impact of offshoring production on technological innovation. Her key finding: When optoelectronics companies offshored production of their original designs to, for instance, Asia, they tended to produce those initial designs cheaply and efficiently. When these firms then began work on new and improved designs, however, they tended to lose valuable time and

knowledge if their operations were off shore.7 Thus, moving manufacturing overseas impeded the companies’ ability to compete and keep at the forefront of design and production and to efficiently push forward new technologies.8 Inexorably, then, these companies will follow other manufacturers who have shifted design and innovation closer to their physical operations— witness the photovoltaic manufacturing industry.

Tech leadership is the primary driver of hegemony.Weiss 14 – Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Professor Emeritus in Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, Honorary Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University. (Linda, America Inc.?: Innovation and Enterprise in the National Security State, Cornell University Press, 4/1/14, p. 1-3)//JJ

So what accounts for America’s transformative capacity? Where do its breakthrough innovations come from? My answer traces the relationship between high technology, national security, and political culture. It advances three interlinked propositions regarding the role of the NSS as technology enterprise and

commercialization engine; its geopolitical drivers ; and the institutional consequences of

an antistatist constraint. The national security state as technology enterprise. First, America's capacity for transformative innovation derives

not merely from the entrepreneurship of its private sector, or simply from the state as such, but from the national security state—a particular cluster of federal agencies that collaborate closely with private actors in pursuit of security-related objectives. The NSS is a wholly new postwar creation that is geared to the permanent mobilization of the nation's science and technology resources for military primacy , and here I document and explain why it has had to become increasingly involved in commercial undertakings. Although centered on defense preparedness, the NSS is a good deal broader than the military, yet narrower than the state as a whole. In addition to its defense core in the Department of Defense, the NSS comprises several other components created at the height of the Cold War to pursue, deliver, or underwrite innovation in the service of securing technological supremacy. Although some are designated as "civilian" in their ori- gins, evolution, and current mix of activities, these NSS components remain deeply enmeshed in national security or dual-use functions (as we shall see in chapter 2).4 Acting as commander in chief, the president sits at the peak of this complex, supported by the Oval Office and, in particular, the Office of Science and Technology Policy. In sum, I discuss NSS activities not in the more popular sense of a surveillance state, but as a national "technology enterprise" in which the military is the central, but far from exclusive, actor. In telling this Story, I demonstrate and account for a major shift in NS.S innovation programs and policies that involved the national security agencies cultivating and undertaking commercialization ventures. (c. 1945 up to the 1970s), this process of fostering commercially relevant (general-purpose or dual-use) technologies took both direct and indirect forms. Then (especially from the 1980s onward) it also took a more proactive form, via patenting and licensing reforms and cooperative agreements to transfer technology from the federal labs to the private sector, via the launching of new procurement and joint innovation initiatives, and via the creation of new venture capital (VC) schemes. By placing greater emphasis on commercialization opportunities, some of these incentives sought to sweeten collaboration with the DOD and other security-related agencies, and thus to increase NISS influence over the direction of technology. A significant problem for the NSS has been that since the late 1970s, it has become progressively more challenging to enlist innovative companies in the private sector to work on security-related projects. While traditional defense suppliers grew increasingly large and specialized in systems integration, by the 1970s the more innovative producer companies—above all, critical suppliers Of integrated circuits—had begun to pull away from the federal market. Attracting nondefense firms to do defense work was at one time easy because the government market (in

semiconductors and computers, for instance) was so much larger than the private market, and healthy profits could be made. But by the mid- 1970s commercial markets had come into their own, leading firms to reorient production to suit the more standardized demand. One consequence of lacking the earlier pull power Of massive demand is that NISS agencies have had to create new incentives to foster private-sector collaboration. One of the major incentives intended to reattract the private sector is the inclusion of commercial goals in NSS technology policies. Commercial viability therefore has to stand alongside security and technological supremacy in NSS policy. For instance, if a firm works with an agency to create a technology, service, or prototype for use by the U.S. Army, it will also be encouraged from the outset of the project to create a similar product for the commercial market. In this way, and many more, the NSS has progressively been drawn into promoting commercial innovation for security reasons. One implication, demonstrated in some detail, is that the NISS has achieved a much broader reach than commonly implied by the notion Of a military-industrial complex. Geopolitical drivers. What are the drivers of the NSS technology enterprise? Geopolitics and related threat perceptions have been the original catalyst for NSS formation and its evolution as an innovation engine . This state- (and technology-) building dynamic has occurred in three broad phases: the Cold War, the rise of Japan as techno-security challenge, and the post-9/11 era of asymmetric threats. The NSS emerged and expanded in fits and starts after World War II in response to a perceived international threat, emanating from the Soviet Union, that proved both enduring and persistent. It is instructive to note that in this phase the NSS bears at least some comparison with the erstwhile "developmental states" of Northeast Asia. They too emerged in response to an intensely perceived security threat, from neighboring China and North Korea, but instead sought national security more broadly via economic improvement, or industrial catch-up. Living on the fault lines of the Cold War in the presence of a credible and unyielding security threat exerted an unusual pressure on the East Asian states to pursue security by building economic strength. More distinctively in the case of Japan, Peter Katzenstein has developed the argument that, against the backdrop of terrible defeat, domestic power struggles succeeded in reorienting Japan's conception of security in favor Of economic rather than military strength. Thus the Japanese state practices a form of "technological national security" in order to ensure against its resource dependence and reduce its exposure to international supply disruptions (Katzenstein 1996, 2005; also Samuels 1994). Fundamental motivations drawn from different historical experiences thus serve to underline a unique feature of the NSS. In contrast to Japan (and the East Asian developmental states more generally), America's national security State has been geared to the pursuit of technological superior, not for reasons of national independence, economic competitiveness, or resource

dependency, but in order to maintain American primacy . For the United States, the experience of World War Il drove home the point that science and technology (S&T) was a game changer—the key to winning the war—and that future preparedness would depend on achieving and sustaining technological superiority. Geopolitics is thus the driver, not economics. I emphasize this point because many analysts have viewed the Pentagon as the source of an industrial policy that is pursued beneath the radar6—a claim that this book disputes since it mistakes the nature of the primary driver. From its inception, the NSS was tasked with ensuring the technology leadership of the United States for the purpose of national defense. Even as the Soviet menace retreated, security proved paramount as the U.S. confronted a newly resurgent Japan that threatened to dethrone it as the regnant technology power. Appreciating the strength and intensity of the U.S. security focus means never underestimating the significance of this point: as long as U.S. military strategy continues to rely on a significant technology lead over its adversaries (real or potential), threats to that lead can never be simply (or even primarily) a commercial matter—even when the NSS "goes commercial.

Hegemony solves multiple hotspots for escalation.Varisco ‘13 -- Andrea Edoardo Varisco holds a Master in International Affairs, Peace and Conflict Studies specialization from the Australian National University and the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo and a Master in Politics and Comparative Institutions from the University of

Milano. He has worked as intern for the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs, as consultant for a European consulting company and as trainee for the Flemish Peace Institute and the European Foundation for Democracy. (Andrea Edoardo Varisco, "Towards a Multi-Polar International System: Which Prospects for Global Peace?," http://www.e-ir.info/2013/06/03/towards-a-multi-polar-international-system-which-prospects-for-global-peace/ /KentDenver-NK)

During the 20th century multi-polar international systems resulted in instability and led to two world wars in less than 50 years. The balance of power and the system of alliances of the early 20th century was swept away by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914. That event triggered World War I, a global conflict that caused the death of more than 15 million people in less than five years. After few decades, the multi-polar world emerged by World War I with a new system of alliances and the multilateral body of the League of Nations was not able to tame the totalitarian aspirations of Hitler. The German invasion of Poland in 1939 triggered World War II, the deadliest conflict of the history which resulted in millions of deaths and in the holocaust.

Since the end of the World War II the world has never been multi- polar again, nevertheless these historical accounts seem to indicate how multi-polarity often created an unstable and unpredictable world, characterized by shifting alliances and by the aspiration of the rising powers to change the balance of power and create a new order.¶ These historical features of multi-polarity will likely distinguish also the future multi-polar world , in spite of its strong economic interconnection and institutionalization. History indeed has also shown how the effects on stability of a global economy and of multilateral institutions have been sometimes overestimated. The multi-polar world at the beginning of the 20th century was highly economically interconnected and characterized by a large cross-border flows of goods, capital and people, at the point that the ratio of trade to output indicates that “Britain and France are only slightly more open to trade today than they were in 1913, while Japan is less open now than then” (The Economist, 99; Van den Bossche, 4). Nevertheless, this high interconnection was swept away by World War I. Furthermore, the presence of the League of Nations did not prevent World War II; likewise, the multilateral organization of the UN has not always been effective in promoting peace and security, and membership in the European Union did not prevent European countries from having different positions and antithetic behaviors in the wake of US war in Iraq in 2003. A shifting from a well defined hierarchy of power to a great power rivalry will therefore result in a less stable world order.¶ Towards a Multi-Polar, Nuclear International System: Which Prospects for Global Peace?¶ The prospects of a great power rivalry are particularly strong in East Asia, a region characterized by weak regional alliances and institutions , in which the economic rise of some actors could indeed represent a serious source of instability in the near future. The decline of the US and the rise of China could for example undermine the Asian balance of power and bring to light the old rivalry between China and Japan (Shambaugh). A strong rising China armed with middle range missiles could be perceived as threatening by Japan, worried that its historical American ally could not defend it because of US high involvement in other corners of the globe. The stability of the region appears even more difficult to achieve considering that the concept of balance of

power requires shared common values and similar cultural understanding, requisites that are not present between the two major powers of the Asia Pacific region, China and Japan (Friedberg).¶ India has been portrayed as the third pole of the multi-polar world in 2050 (Virmani; Gupta). Yet its constant rise could undermine Asian stability and, for example, worsen Indian relations with its neighbor Pakistan. Moreover, the scarcity of natural resources in a world that is consuming and demanding a high quantity of them could have several implications on global security and stability (Dannreuther; Kenny; Laverett and Bader).¶ In this framework, the rise of Russia, a country which exports large quantities of oil and gas, controls the European provisions of energy and has had high increases in military expenditure in the last decade could represent another potential source of instability for the future world order. Russia has increased military spending by 16 per cent in real terms since 2008, including a 9.3 per cent increase in 2011 (Background Paper on Military Expenditures 5). Before 2008, it had increased its military expenditure by 160 per cent in a decade, (SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook 2008 199), accounting for 86 per cent of the total increase of 162 per cent in military expenditure of Eastern Europe, the region of the world with the highest increment in military expenditure from 1998 to 2007 (SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook 2008 177). Moreover, the control of the gas prices in Europe and the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Central and Western Europe have already been causes of tension between Russia and the West. The possibility to exploit and supply a large amount of natural resources, the growth of its military power and divergences with the US in some foreign policy issues, such as the Iranian nuclear program or the status of Kosovo, indicate that the stability of the future multi-polar world could be seriously undermined by a resurgent Russia (Arbatov; Goldman; Trenin; Wallander).¶ A return to multi-polarity will therefore imply more instability among great powers. But great power rivalry will not be the only source of possible instability for the future multi-polar world. The current distribution of power allows not only great powers but also middle, small powers and non-state actors to have military capabilities that could threaten the global security. In particular, the presence of nuclear weapons constitutes a further reason of concern and implies that the future world could carry not only the potential instability of multi-polarity and great powers rivalry, but also the dangers entailed in nuclear proliferation. The future multi-polar world will thus be potentially more unstable than all the other multi-polar periods history has experienced until nowadays: for the first time in history, the world could become both multi-polar and nuclear.¶ While some scholars argue that nuclear deterrence “could reduce the war-proneness of the coming multi-polar system” (Layne, 44-45), the majority of them consider the presence of nuclear weapons as a source of instability (McNamara; Rosen; Allison). In particular, regional powers and states that are not great powers armed with nuclear capabilities could represent a cause of concern for global security. A nuclear Iran could for example attack – or be attacked – by Israel and easily involve in this war the rest of the world (Sultan; Huntley). A war between Pakistan and India , both nuclear states, could result in an Armageddon for the whole Asia. An attack from the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea ( DPRK ) on Japan or South Korea will trigger an immediate reaction from the US and “a nuclear proliferation ‘domino effect’ in East Asia” (Huntley, 725). Terrorists armed with nuclear weapons could wreak havoc and target the heart of the most powerful countries of the world (Bunn and Wier).¶ Iran, Pakistan, DPRK, terrorist groups will rarely be great powers or poles in a future multi-polar world. Nevertheless, the effects of their actions could easily reverberate all over the globe and represent another cause of potential instability . For the first time in history, the stability of the future world will therefore depend not only on the unpredictable effects of the rivalry among great powers, but also on the dangerous potential of middle and small powers

and non-state actors armed with nuclear weapons.¶ Conclusion¶ On the morning of the 5th April 2009 the DPRK sent a communication satellite into space using a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile. Suspicious neighbouring countries and the US considered the rocket launch as a cover for testing ballistic long-range missile technology and a threat for their national security: South Korea and Japan feared that their unpredictable neighbour could target their population, the US was afraid that DPRK missiles could in the future reach its western shores.¶ The result of the launch is debated: while Pyongyang asserted that the satellite reached the orbit, US experts considered it as a failure and remarked that the missile travelled 3,200 km before landing in the Pacific Ocean (Broad). Surely DPRK actions achieved the goal to deeply divide the international community: the UN Secretary General regretted the launch and urged Security Council Resolutions (Statement SG/SM/12171), the then Chinese Ambassador to the UN Yesui Zhang stressed “cautious and proportionate” (Richter and Baum) responses to avoid “increased tensions” (Richter and Baum), the then Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso considered it an “extremely provocative act” (Ricther and Baum), while US President Obama declared that, “North Korea’s development and proliferation of ballistic missile technology pose a threat to the northeast Asian region and to international peace and security” (Obama, Statement from Prague).¶ This essay has explained why a clumsy launch of a communication satellite, or a military exercitation of the nation with the 197th Gross Domestic Product pro capita of the world (Central Intelligence Agency) can become a threat “to international peace and security” (Obama, Statement from Prague) and could represent a serious source of instability for the world in the near future. It has been argued that the current decline of the hegemon of the international system, together with a rise of new actors could create the conditions for a shifting to multi-polarity and great powers rivalry. The future multi-polar order will not be different from the other multi-polar moments history has witnessed and will result in more instability and unpredictability than in the current unipolar world. However, for the first time in the history multi-polarity will not only carry the risks entailed in the research of balance of power among great powers. The availability of the nuclear weapons will indeed represent another potential source of instability. Middle powers, small powers and non-state actors with nuclear capabilities could become a serious threat for the global security; they could trigger and reinforce the rivalry among great powers which usually characterizes multi-polarity, and eventually undermine the peace and stability of the future world.

DA – Steel

1NC – UQ Bilateral efforts on addressing China’s excess steel capacity have started, but they haven’t been fully codified – noninterference is key.Lawson ’16 – banker for Goldman Sachs, (Alex, “US, China Tackle Steel Crisis, Investment Treaty At Summit,” http://www.law360.com/articles/804367/us-china-tackle-steel-crisis-investment-treaty-at-summit, DS)

Discussions about China’s excess steel capacity dominated much of the conversation at the final Strategic & Economic Dialogue, or S&ED, in the wake of the U.S. International Trade Commission’s decision to take up a

case that could lead to the blockage of all Chinese steel from the U.S. market. Still, the S&ED did not deliver much in the way of substantial policy breakthroughs on steel, as both sides mostly committed to continue their ongoing efforts to combat the problem, which has wrought havoc on the global market . “The United States and China support ongoing international efforts aimed at identifying effective government policies for addressing global excess capacity and structural adjustment, and achieving greater transparency on industry developments to promote market-driven responses,” the two governments said in a joint fact sheet circulated by

the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Specifically, China said that it will adopt measures to “strictly contain” steel capacity expansion and urge the exit of steel production capacity that falls short of environmental, energy, consumption or safety standards. In order to offset the unemployment that will come from China’s efforts, China also agreed to establish a 100 billion renminbi ($15 billion) fund that will provide incentives and grants to local governments and businesses to support the resettlement and benefits of workers that are laid off. The Obama administration

has been under tremendous pressure from the U.S. steel industry to take decisive action to address China’s excess steel capacity , but so far officials have decided to tackle the problem through various dialogues with China and other world powers.

1NC – LinkThe plan crushes the steel industry – reinforces dysfunctional models of trade. AFL-CIO ’16 - American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, national trade union center and the largest federation of unions, (“THE CRISIS OF U.S. MANUFACTURING IN THE AGE OF A GLOBAL RACE TO THE BOTTOM,” http://www.aflcio.org/content/download/174598/4155037/file/The%20Crisis%20of%20U.S.%20Manufacturing%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20a%20Global%20Race%20to%20the%20Bottom%20-%20FINAL.pdf, DS)

China is the center of the downward pressure in the global economy. China’s failure to move toward a demand-driven economy has led it to attempt to maintain economic growth through unfairly traded exports. The result has been a catastrophe for the U.S. steel industry.

China has maintained, and continues to expand, its massive excess steelmaking capacity, exporting the surplus at below-market prices. During a time of lackluster global growth, this practice has caused irreparable harm—crushing prices, closing American mills, coke batteries and ore mines. It has devastated communities and cost thousands of workers their jobs . For far too long, we have lacked a clear, consistent and comprehensive set of policies that address the reality of China’s approach to economics, trade, security and international affairs. It is time for a wholesale re-evaluation and articulation of a new approach. Since 2000, when Congress granted China Permanent

Normal Trade Relations, the bilateral accumulated trade deficit has grown to $3.66 trillion. China’s manufacturing capabilities have grown along with it, as evidenced by our Advanced Technology Products trade deficit with China. This year, China is expected to export assembled motor vehicles along with high technology equipment and countless other products that represent increasing competitive challenges to the U.S. manufacturing base. Too many corporations, however, appear ready to “double down” on the failed model of U.S-China trade relations through their advocacy of a U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT ). Today, almost half (46%) of all China’s exports come from

enterprises significantly funded by foreign investment. The proposed U.S.-China BIT, with its special rights for investors and absence of labor and environmental protections, reinforces the current dysfunctional and unbalanced model of U.S.-China trade .1

2NC – UQChina’s steel exporting is slowing due to massive tariffs – the plan overturns those. Pham ’16 – investment journalist for Forbes, (Peter, “China's Steel Industry is Dominating the Global Market -- But Will it Last?” http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterpham/2016/04/27/chinas-steel-industry-is-dominating-the-global-market-but-will-it-last/2/#471ee1904c1f, DS)

To protect their domestic production, and to retaliate against what they see as unfair “dumping” of cheap Chinese steel on world markets, some countries have begun imposing heavy tariffs on Chinese steel. This includes tariffs of 20% in India, 46% in Britain, and 236% in U.S. If the tariffs slow down Chinese steel imports, China will no longer be able to flood the market with excess steel.

Production is soaring now – they’ll flood the market if possible. Xinhua ’16 – Chinese economy news source, (“China steel industry sees profit turnaround,” http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0513/c90000-9057626.html, DS)

China's bloated steel industry saw a profit turnaround in March, Xinhua-run newspaper Economic Information Daily reported Friday, but the

momentum is unlikely to sustain due to a persistent mismatch between supply and demand.

China's large and medium-sized steel producers reported 2.7 billion yuan (415.4 million U.S. dollars) in profits in March, ending a 15-month losing streak, the paper quoted unnamed authorities as saying. The unexpected improvement was largely due to recovering steel prices on the back of a pick-up in infrastructure and property projects, as well as elevated speculation in the steel futures market, which analysts said would be unsustainable. Steel makers have been in deep water over the past few years as a result of shrinking demand and excessive capacity built up during decades of rapid

expansion. "Steel demand only improved slightly. There is no strong rebound," said Xu Xiangchun, an analyst with industry information provider

mysteel.com. He predicted steel prices had peaked in April. China's over-supplied steel sector experienced years of plunging prices and factory shutdowns due to the sluggish economy. However, with encouragement from an upward trend in prices in March, many

steel mills are resuming production, challenging government efforts to cut overcapacity in the industry.

DA – Russia Relations

1NC – LinkThe plan annoys Russia – it’s perceived as a decommitment from the China-Russia alliance. Luh ’15 – staff writer for Prospect Journal of International Affairs, (Angela, “LOOKING FORWARD IN U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS: OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS,” https://prospectjournal.org/2015/05/08/looking-forward-in-u-s-china-relations-opportunities-and-risks/, DS)

1. China’s improved relations with Russia One of the impediments to U.S.-China cooperation is China’s partnerships with countries that have poor relations with the U.S. The most notable of them is Russia. Xi is currently in Russia to attend a commemorative parade for the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe (an event that originally

was also to be attended by North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un). Since Putin’s presidential term in 2012, Russia and China have elevated their relationship, especially in energy cooperation and infrastructure projects. Aside from the high-profile $400 billion Gazprom contract signed

last May, China and Russia are also cooperating on the construction of a high-speed rail in Russia. Amid increasing acrimony between Russia and the West after the U.S. renewed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, China has not only increased its cooperation with Russia but also condemned the U.S.’s use of sanctions. China’s support of Russia’s geopolitical aggressions is indicative of its own problematic regional ambitions.

DA – TPP Politics

1NC – LinkBIT negotiations cost PC – pressure for concessions.Weija ’16 – journalist for the Global Times, (Hu, “US must meet China halfway to reach agreement in investment treaty negotiations,” http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/987281.shtml, DS)

However, it is doubtful whether the Obama administration has enough political resources to push forward domestic reforms, especially at a time when American society is showing less enthusiasm for the BIT negotiations. It seems the US now wants to pressure China to make more concessions in order to reach an agreement. But it is unrealistic for the US to force China to sign the agreement without making concessions itself. While China will make great efforts to adopt the negative list approach, the US has to properly handle issues such as security reviews to meet the concerns of the Chinese side. According to media reports, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei recently became the target of a US investigation over its trade with Iran. Concerns were expressed by some in China that this represented unfair treatment of Chinese investment by the US. The Obama administration may need to put more focus on domestic affairs, instead of putting pressure on China. Admittedly, there's not much time left for the two countries. If negotiations are not concluded while Obama is still in office, the treaty might be hit by growing uncertainties. Both China and the US have to do more in order to improve their domestic investment environments, and should avoid a diplomatic war over the BIT issue.

2NC – LinkBIT costs capital – highly contentious.Shambaugh ’15 – Prof of Political Science @ George Washington, specializes in US-Sino Relations (David, “Sino-US relations: Divorce is not an option”, June 12th, http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/sino-us-relations-divorce-is-not-an-option//JC)

Despite this overall macro climate in the relationship, the US and China still have to coexist, and to do so peacefully if at all possible. We have business to do with each other - both commercial and diplomatic business. Perhaps the most immediate opportunity - and one that would give an enormous boost to the relationship - would be the conclusion of a bilateral investment treaty. But negotiating this treaty is hung up in the queue behind the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Given the difficulty the White House is having getting that agreement finalised and through Congress, there may be little appetite in Washington to conclude an investment treaty with China this year.

The plan’s politically controversial – domestic reforms and TPP. Weihua ’16 – politics writer for China Daily USA, (Chen, “China, US talk negative list for treaty,” http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/us/2016-06/17/content_25753018.htm, DS)

Derek Scissors , resident scholar at AEI, believes there is no chance for the BIT to pass the US Congress during Obama's remaining months in office. Most experts believe that the top priority for the US government is to make a last-ditch effort to push the Congress to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade

agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries that does not include China. Scissors noted that the environment in the US now is very protectionist , and the immediate priority for the next administration will be domestic issues rather than any international agenda. He agreed that the Chinese side should be negotiating in good faith. "But you don't want to give away everything to this administration because the new administration wants to put its own stamp on it," he said.

BIT is a lightning rod – no one agrees on conditionsLester 12 – Lester’s research focuses on WTO disputes, regional trade agreements, disguised protectionism and the history of international trade law. ¶ Before joining the Cato Institute, he worked for the trade law practice of a Washington, D.C., law firm, and also as a legal affairs officer at the Appellate Body Secretariat of the World Trade Organization. (Simon Lester, "Do We Need an Investment Treaty with China?," http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/do-we-need-investment-treaty-china /KentDenver-NK)

Experience with the Canada-China treaty as it takes effect will be informative for the U.S. policy debate. Chinese investment has already proved controversial in the United States, with the U.S. government sometimes wary of Chinese ownership of particular U.S. assets. It seems clear that the issue would be even more contentious if Chinese companies—especially state-owned ones—were able to sue the U.S. government directly for perceived

bad treatment.¶ U.S.-China talks on foreign investment should address the actual content of the treaty, in particular whether certain provisions are necessary to provide a framework for liberalized investment. The specific legal obligations in these treaties will have an impact on how the treaty works in practice, and as a result on how a liberalized foreign-investment policy is judged in the court of public opinion. A key question: do “Minimum Standard of Treatment” rules, combined with investor-state dispute settlement, go too far?¶

This is not the first time such issues have been raised, as they have been controversial in other U.S. treaties as well. But the U.S.-China economic relationship is particularly contentious, and as a result these issues might face scrutiny beyond that seen in past treaties. By opening the door for a flood of sometimes questionable lawsuits by foreign companies, a U.S.-China investment treaty could actually undermine an open foreign-investment policy both in China and the United States. For those who support liberalized foreign investment, it might finally be time for a serious discussion of how international agreements should best handle these issues.

1NC Link – TPPBIT prevents TPP – Huge political explosion ensues.Dayen ‘15 -- a contributing writer to Salon.com who also writes for The Intercept, The New Republic, and The Fiscal Times( David, “The Job-Killing Trade Deal You’ve Never Heard Of: The China Bilateral Investment Treaty” http://prospect.org/article/job-killing-trade-deal-you%E2%80%99ve-never-heard-china-bilateral-investment-treaty//JC)

Wrapping up the BIT negotiations, however, would trigger a political explosion . Given that the leading Republican candidate assails trade deals with China in every public address, tossing another U.S./China treaty into the mix would fan an already volatile political fire. Like other treaties, the BIT would require a two-thirds vote for Senate ratification. That would be a difficult lift in a year with a record Chinese trade deficit and high anxiety over the downsides of globalization. The BIT’s presence also undermines the geopolitical case for TPP, since one of the main arguments for that treaty is that it’s needed to “contain” China. “If you’re saying TPP is for strategic reasons and doing this at the same time and not telling us anything about it, what are we to expect?” asks Lynn of New America. “We have to assume it’s a giveaway, and we have to assume your claims about TPP are bogus.” China has ignored many of the commitments imposed on it following its entry into the World Trade Organization, and critics fear the Chinese would not live up to their obligations on the BIT either. And even amid the secrecy surrounding the deal, many question the value of letting China invest more in the U nited

S tates, or letting U.S. corporations escape domestic laws and regulations, effectively turning capitalism into a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose game. Investment rules acceptable to corporate executives aren’t necessarily good for workers. And pushing another deal that accelerates the hollowing out of the nation’s industrial base, in an election year, borders on political insanity.

UQ – ToplineIt’s close – Trump needs to unite the GOP around blue-collar workers and men. Blanton 7/1 – politics reporter for FoxNews, (Dana, “Fox News Poll: Clinton up by 6 points, 89 percent say 'hot-headed' describes Trump,” http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/29/fox-news-poll-clinton-up-by-6-points-89-percent-say-hot-headed-describes-trump.html, DS)

Donald Trump has had a few rocky weeks on the campaign trail, and it shows in the latest Fox News Poll. Just over half of Republicans would rather have someone besides Trump as their nominee, and his support in the presidential ballot test has dropped seven points since May. Democrat Hillary Clinton is up 44-38 percent over Trump in a head-to-head matchup. Earlier this month, Clinton had a three-point edge (42-39 percent). In May, Trump was up by three (45-42 percent). Clinton’s current lead is just inside the poll’s margin of sampling error. The national poll, released Wednesday, finds she has a similar advantage when voters are asked about confidence in the candidates to make the “right” decisions for the country if they were president: 48 percent are at least somewhat confident Clinton would. It’s 42 percent for Trump. In the matchup, Clinton is the choice among blacks (87-3 percent), women (51-32 percent), voters under age 45 (45-35 percent), and those earning less than $50,000 annually (52-30 percent). Trump leads among white evangelical Christians (66-18 percent), whites without a college degree (51-33 percent), gun owners (52-30 percent), whites (48-34 percent), men (46-36 percent), and independents (39-31 percent). Since May, Trump has lost ground with Republicans (-8 points), whites without degrees (-10 points), and men (-9 points). The race is almost even among just those “extremely” or “very” interested in the election (45 Clinton to 43 Trump). This group went for Trump by four points in early June (45-41 percent). Party unity is a trouble spot for Trump. Just 74 percent of Republicans back him over Clinton, down from 82 percent in May. For comparison, Mitt Romney lost despite garnering 93 percent support among Republicans in 2012. In addition, just over half of Republicans would prefer a different nominee (51 percent someone else vs. 48 percent Trump). And while most GOP voters describe Trump as intelligent, more than 7-in-10 feel he’s hot-headed and obnoxious. More on that later. Eighty-three percent of Democrats support Clinton in the ballot test. That’s better than Trump does among Republicans, yet worse than the 92 percent backing President Obama received in 2012. By a 21-point margin, Democrats want Clinton (58 percent) as their party’s nominee over Bernie Sanders (37 percent). Some 66 percent of Democrats who preferred Sanders are backing Clinton over Trump. By comparison, only 52 percent of Republicans who want someone else to lead their party support Trump over Clinton. Twenty-four percent of Republicans lack confidence that Trump would make the right decisions for the country. Fourteen percent of Democrats feel that way about Clinton. "The results here aren't disastrous for Trump given the troubles he's encountered the past few weeks,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. “He's within striking distance. But he absolutely must combat

the growing perception that he is temperamentally unsuited and intellectually unprepared to be president." What words best describe the candidates? There are a couple things voters generally agree on, and that’s both Clinton and Trump are patriotic -- and lack honesty. Clinton outperforms Trump by the widest margin on “experienced,” as 77 percent say that describes her, while just 34 percent feel the same of Trump. Far more see Clinton (82 percent) than Trump (66 percent) as “intelligent,” and “sensible” (54 percent Clinton vs. 35 percent Trump). About six-in-ten think “patriotic” fits each. Clinton is still dogged by low honesty numbers, as a record low 30 percent think she’s “honest and trustworthy,” and 58 percent describe her as “corrupt.” Trump doesn’t have much to brag about here either: just 34 percent describe him as “honest and trustworthy” and 45 percent say “corrupt” fits. Most voters feel Trump is “hot-headed” (89 percent) and “obnoxious” (83 percent), while far fewer say those apply to Clinton (35 percent “hot-headed” and 45 percent “obnoxious”). Less than half say the phrase “cares about people like me” describes Clinton (45 percent) and only about one third say it fits Trump (35 percent). “While our polling shows a clear positive trend for Clinton, her six-point lead is notably small considering voters almost universally think Trump is hot-headed and obnoxious, and most think he’s inexperienced,” says Anderson. “This race is nowhere close to breaking open, despite some huge perceived deficiencies in Trump’s character.”

UQElectoral votes are close – 255 to 190. Todd 7/1 – MSNBC news reporter, (Chuck, “First Read: Clinton Maintains Edge in New NBC Battleground Map,” http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-read-clinton-maintains-edge-new-nbc-battleground-map-n602306, DS)

With both parties now having their presumptive nominees and with new battleground-state polling and maneuvering to chew on, we've updated our NBC News battleground map. The result: Hillary Clinton maintains her advantage, having 255 electoral votes in her column to Donald Trump's 190; 93 are in Tossup. Back in May, it was Clinton 253, Trump 190, Tossup 95. The big changes from two months ago: We moved Florida from Tossup to Lean Dem; Nevada and Pennsylvania from Lean Dem to Tossup; Utah from Likely GOP to Lean GOP; Mississippi and Montana from Lean GOP to Likely GOP; and New Jersey from Lean Dem to Likely Dem.

It’s close – swing states and white voters are key. Todd 7/1 – MSNBC news reporter, (Chuck, “First Read: Clinton Maintains Edge in New NBC Battleground Map,” http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-read-clinton-maintains-edge-new-nbc-battleground-map-n602306, DS)

Like in May, our Tossup designations are very (small c) conservative; we'll be more aggressive after the conventions. But for now, anything that appears to be a 5-point state or less sits in the toss-up column. Two forces seem to be at play here. First, Clinton is over-performing in diverse states like Florida and North Carolina -- or to put another way, Trump is VASTLY underperforming in these states. The exception, however, is Nevada, where both private and public polling shows a close contest that actually leans Trump's way right now. (Trump's strength is Reno, by the way). The second force at play is that Trump is holding his own and even slightly over-performing in states with large white working-class populations like Pennsylvania. (Yes, most public polls show Clinton ahead in the Keystone State, but note that Clinton's Super PAC is now on the air there, and that Vice President Biden will campaign there with Clinton next week.) But Trump is also faring worse in more upscale white states like Utah. Speaking of Trump's disadvantage in diverse states, here's an ad that caught our eye. Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman's first ad of the cycle features a series of female and minority voters offering testimonials about Coffman's work for his constituents. "He's not like other politicians," says one woman, while the next follows up with "he's not like other Republicans." In Coffman's minority-heavy district - which Obama carried in the last two elections - this kind of direct separation from his own party's presumptive nominee is likely the surest path to keeping his head above water in the age of Trump. We bet you'll see quite a few more pitches like this from Republicans in swing districts who can't afford to count on Trump-driven white turnout alone. Coffman's ad also reinforces the conventional wisdom that Trump is struggling in diverse swing states and districts.

It’s close – prefer university polls. Kopan 6/29 – politics and cybersecurity reporter for CNN, (Tai, “First on CNN: Poll shows Clinton with battleground leads,”

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/29/politics/battleground-polls-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/, DS)

Separate polling in three battleground states, conducted by Quinnipiac University, found a much tighter race: Clinton up 8 points in Florida, but only 1 point in Pennsylvania and a tie in Ohio. Each of the seven states surveyed is seen as a swing state where either party is normally seen as relatively competitive in presidential elections, though Michigan has gone Democratic in most recent presidential elections. Ballotpedia surveyed roughly 600 voters in each of the states between June 10-22 for the poll and each survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. A Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday shows Hillary Clinton leading Trump by just two points, 42% to 40%, a much closer race than other recent surveys have shown. With third-party candidates included, Clinton leads 39% to 37%, with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson at 8% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 4%.

UQ – AT RasmussenRasmussen is wrong – the majority of polls vote neg. Heslam 7/1 – writer for the Boston Herald, (Jessica, “Donald Trump back ahead in new poll,” http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2016/07/donald_trump_back_ahead_in_new_poll, DS)

It’s been more than a month since Donald Trump was a winner in general-election polls. That all changed yesterday. A Rasmussen Reports “White House Watch” survey put the presumptive GOP presidential nominee ahead of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, 43-39 percent. It’s his “highest level” yet in the Rasmussen rolling watch. But other polls, including a Fox News tally out Wednesday, had Clinton ahead of Trump, 44-38 percent. A Real Clear Politics average of all the top polls in the presidential race agrees, with Clinton ahead of Trump, 45-40 percent.

I/L – Hillary BlamedThe GOP will pin the plan to Hillary because of secretary of state policies – this assumes her recent changes.Webster ’15 - senior research scholar, lecturer, and senior fellow of The China Center, at Yale Law School, (Graham, “U.S.–China Week: National Security Law, Clinton on China, the Shinzo Abe factor (Issue 12, 2015.07.06),” http://transpacifica.net/2015/07/u-s-china-week-national-security-law-clinton-on-china-the-shinzo-abe-factor-issue-12-2015-07-06/, DS)

From Reuters: “Hillary Clinton accused China on Saturday of stealing commercial secrets and ‘huge amounts of government information,’ and of trying to ‘hack into everything that doesn’t move in America.’ … Clinton said she wanted to see China’s peaceful rise. ‘But we also have to be fully vigilant, China’s military is growing very quickly, they’re establishing military installations that again threaten countries we have treaties with, like the Philippines because they are building on contested property,’ said Clinton.” Asked about Clinton’s remarks, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said it is in the interest of both countries to “strengthen dialogue and cooperation in a constructive spirit.” ANALYSIS: Although it is will be no surprise to observers, including in the Chinese government, this previews the moderately tough tone we can expect from Clinton throughout the campaign. It also underlines the salience of hacking and the South China Sea in U.S. political discourse on China. If, as expected, Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, she will likely be attacked by Republicans as having been too soft on China while she was secretary of state. The “pivot” will likely be dismissed as mere rhetoric. It will be interesting to see what positions Clinton takes to fight this line of attack.

I/L – Voters Switch to TrumpVoters will flock to Trump – he’s more trusted on issues of foreign policy, the economy, and jobs. Saad 7/2 – politics writer for Gallup, (Lydia, “Trump Leads Clinton on Top-Ranking Economic Issues,” http://www.gallup.com/poll/192104/trump-leads-clinton-top-ranking-economic-issues.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication, DS)

PRINCETON, N.J. -- If the race for president comes down to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump could benefit from an edge in public confidence on the issues Americans are prioritizing most this election. A slight majority of Americans choose Trump as better able to handle the economy (53%) and jobs (52%), and 50% choose him -- versus 46% who choose Clinton -- on terrorism and national security. At the same time, the Democratic front-runner boasts commanding leads over the presumptive Republican nominee in public perceptions of who can best handle education and healthcare, with 61% and 56%, respectively, choosing Clinton over Trump on these issues. Both issues rank among the top five Americans say will influence their vote for president. These findings come from a May 18-22 Gallup poll in which U.S. adults were first asked to rate how important each of 17 prominent national issues will be to their vote for president this year, and then to say whether Clinton or Trump would best handle each issue. As Gallup reported previously, most of the issues Americans rate as highly important are economic and national defense-related. By contrast, most of the bottom eight involve social policy, trade and the environment. (See the full list in the table at the

end of the story.) Overall, Trump leads Clinton in public perceptions of who would better handle eight of the 17 issues . Beyond his modest leads on the economy (+10) and jobs (+7), and slight edge on terrorism (+4), he leads on several lower-ranked concerns: the federal budget deficit (+18), the size and efficiency of the federal government (+14), regulation of banks and Wall Street (+11), taxes (+8) and gun policy (+5). Meanwhile, Clinton has advantages on eight other issues. However, aside from education (+26) and healthcare (+16) these tend to be lower-ranking concerns: climate change (+38), the treatment of minority groups in the U.S. (+38), social issues such as gay marriage and abortion (+33), foreign affairs (+21), income and wealth distribution (+8), and immigration (+8).

Thumper – AT IndictmentIndictment’s subsided – Lynch accepted FBI recommendations.Todd 7/1 – MSNBC news reporter, (Chuck, “First Read: Clinton Maintains Edge in New NBC Battleground Map,” http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-read-clinton-maintains-edge-new-nbc-battleground-map-n602306, DS)

Lynch will accept F.B.I. recommendations in Clinton email investigation The New York Times reports that Attorney General Loretta Lynch will announce that she will accept the recommendations of career FBI prosecutors about whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server. It's a decision she probably SHOULD have made weeks or months ago, for appearance's sake. But her hand was forced after reports of her private meeting at the Phoenix airport with Bill Clinton earlier this week. The drumbeat for her to distance herself from the investigation would have only grown louder through the holiday weekend if she didn't go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off today, and there even likely would have been Democrats agreeing on the need for a special counsel. Clinton world, on the one hand, is probably sighing with relief at Lynch's move. On the other hand, Clinton's fate now rests in the hands of James Comey's FBI, period, with no safety net from the attorney general anymore. By the way, Brooklyn has to be asking itself if the campaigns should have a senior political aide traveling with the former president 24/7? This was aunforced error that perhaps a senior staffer should have been able to foresee.

DA – Xi Good

1NC – LinkThe plan alienates Xi from his supporters – perceived as caving into Western interests.Browne ’15 – economy and foreign policy journalist for the Wall Street Journal, (Simon, “What Xi Jinpoing Offered in the U.S.: A Slight Shift in Tone,” http://www.wsjcom/articles/what-xi-jinping-offered-in-the-u-s-a-slight-shift-in-tone-1443503759, DS)

SHANGHAI—On his trip to America, Xi Jinping often seemed caught between two audiences—his skeptical hosts who needed gentle reassurance and the one that

mattered most, the crowd back home who admire his firm rule and tough nationalism . It made for a few awkward moments when he tried to have things both ways. At the U.N., for instance, he spoke out boldly for women’s rights even though his administration has detained feminists for drawing attention to sexual harassment on public transport. “Shameless,”

tweeted Hillary Clinton. On the South China Sea, Mr. Xi promised not to “militarize” disputed islands. Yet just a few days earlier, new satellite images showed Chinese contractors finishing up work on an airfield on

Fiery Cross Reef long enough to land the biggest Chinese military aircraft. He welcomed foreign NGOs, even as harsh legislation on the way will restrict their activities and put some out of business altogether; he pledged that China will remain open to foreign media organizations, skipping over the fact that censors are blocking their websites . Given these contortions, analysts saw room for interpretation in Mr. Xi’s commitment to preventing the cybertheft of commercial secrets, the most notable deal to emerge from his summit with President Barack Obama. One big question: Will the civilians in charge of enforcement be able to rein in the powerful players in the People’s Liberation Army, whose digital fingerprints are all over cyberintrusions? Likewise, the U.S. business community, which had been rapidly souring on China, reserved judgment on the agreement to speed up a bilateral investment treaty that would open China’s closed markets. Success will depend to a large degree on Mr. Xi’s willingness to challenge state monopolies, which he’s shown little desire to do. Still, progress in these areas will now be held to new

standards, even if it’s not guaranteed. Beyond that, Mr. Xi’s rhetoric, however ambiguous, may signal a deeper shift that will only become apparent over time. Having ruled out the militarization of the artificial islands it has dredged in the South China Sea, China will now take a bigger hit to its regional reputation if it decides to install missiles on them, for instance, or begin air patrols, which many military analysts have been expecting. Winning the hearts of ordinary Americans, and the trust of politicians, was always going to be

a next-to-impossible endeavor for the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao. His immense popularity rests with the Chinese masses whose hearts swell with pride when he flaunts China’s new military hardware and uses it to stand up to America and its allies in Asia . Still, Mr. Xi has plenty of incentive to reconsider his approach to relations with America that has alienated large sections of the U.S. business community, fueled criticism of China’s human-rights practices, hardened strategic thinking on China in the Pentagon and led to calls in the foreign-policy community to launch a Cold War-

style containment strategy against China. First, the Chinese leadership expects the next U.S. president, whether a Democrat or a Republican, to be tougher to deal with than Mr. Obama, whom they’ve pegged as weak and vacillating . While there’s no prospect at all that Mr. Xi will countenance

U.S. lecturing on human rights, or retreat from his nationalist goals to restore China’s ancient role as the regional hegemon , it’s not impossible that he will dial back the belligerence.

2NC – LinkXi gets blamed for BIT – it’s his priority. Behsudi ’16 – trade writer for Politico, (Adam, “Brexit will focus three amigos on trade,” http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-trade/2016/06/brexit-will-focus-three-amigos-on-trade-215056, DS)

FROMAN: CHINA SEEMS SERIOUS ON BIT: Froman said the Obama administration was continuing to evaluate China’s latest offer in long-running talks on a bilateral investment treaty . “I think the key thing is it’s got to be an outstanding agreement and that means it has to effectively open up China’s economy, move it from a world in which everything is prohibited and regulated unless it’s explicitly

approved to one in which everything is approved unless it’s explicitly regulated,” he said. Froman told the group he did not think China was dragging its heels in the talks to see whether Congress would approve TPP. “I think all indications from President Xi [Jinping] on down is that they’re taking this process very seriously. They’re putting a lot of effort into it and I think they’d like to try to get it done ,” he said.

2NC – T/CDisad turns case – BIT does nothing for China absent economic reforms.Held ’16 – journalist for the Asia Times, (Robert, “China: Why reciprocity in market access is pivotal,” http://atimes.com/2016/06/china-why-reciprocity-in-market-access-is-pivotal/, DS)

Indeed, the biggest stepping-stone in concluding the BIT between the two countries so far has been China’s lack of reciprocity, namely its barring of foreign investors from entering a number of protected economic sectors. Hence, bringing China to downsize the “negative list” of off-limits sectors is pivotal in reaching an agreement – which is precisely what Beijing promised would do on June 6. While signs seem positive in that regard, the economic benefits that China could reap from a BIT could be rendered void by China’s systemic internal shortfalls unless the Chinese leadership decides to embark on economic reforms in earnest. Without more reform, concerns that the People’s Republic under Xi Jinping’s aegis will go down a dark path, characterized by the continuous sheltering of the dysfunctional state enterprise sector, a sector that lives under CCP’s wing, will only grow.

CP – Secrecy

1NC – CPText: The United States Federal Government propose secret negotiations with China to [insert plan text]

The CP solves the case and avoids politicization. Xiaotong ’15 - Executive Director of Wuhan University Centre for Economic Diplomacy, and Associate Professor of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Wuhan University, (Zhang, “The EU-China Bilateral Investment Treaty: Pros and Cons,” http://www.whuced.com/show/?id=170&siteid=3, DS)

2. Both sides need to avoid the politicization during the process of negotiation. China is different from the west in many ways including ideology, society and corporate culture. Moreover, China’s rise is a game changer. All these led to high vigilance of other countries to China’s state-owned enterprises, which are symbolic of China’s economic strength. China, however, complains about the so-called “China Threat” theory and many discriminatory policies impeding China’s international trade and economic activities. To ensure the success of such a significant treaty negotiation, it is advisable to keep a low profil

CP – EEZ Leasing

1NC – CPText: The United States federal government should provide leasing incentives, subsidize exploratory efforts, and reform outdated legislative frameworks for private sector rare earth mineral mining.

Private companies can do the plan better – The EEZ has huge deposits and government programs failLoris 14 - Nicolas Loris, an economist, focuses on energy, environmental and regulatory issues as the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation. (Nicolas Loris, "Rare Earths Bill Should Open Markets, Not Grow Government," http://dailysignal.com/2014/07/22/rare-earths-bill-open-markets-create-government-programs/ /KentDenver-NK)

The House of Representatives is likely to vote on Congressman Eric Swalwell’s (D–CA) rare earths bill (H.R.1022) that would create a number of taxpayer-supported government programs to extract and recycle domestic rare earth minerals. But prices going up and down for rare earths don’t necessitate a government programs, even though that’s a popular solution in the halls of Congress. Congress should focus on opening access to America’s rare earth resources work with the Department of Defense to ensure our military has access to the rare earths it needs.¶ Rare earth elements are an important component for a number of products we buy, including smartphones, televisions, medicine, and batteries. They suffer from the misperception that they are hard to come by, but that’s hardly the case. America also has some 13 percent of world reserves, according the U.S. Geological Survey.¶ China supplies a large portion of America’s rare earth metals and is currently selling most of the world’s rare earth elements (REEs). China’s dominance over the rare earth market provides the fodder for concern and government loan guarantee programs, but both the concerns and policy prescriptions are misguided. Former Heritage scholar Derek Scissors wrote in 2011:¶ Chinese production dominance of REEs is unfortunate, but it is also unstable. While the viability of deposits varies with price, the PRC controls no more than 50 percent of world REE reserves, and as exploration continues, that number is likely to fall. China’s extreme production dominance can only last as long as it is willing to offer REEs at below-market prices.¶ This occurred for most of the past decade, which is why China now has the leading position. As soon as Beijing stopped undercutting market prices, prices rose and the global hunt for alternatives began—which has started to bring prices down. As long as suppliers can freely enter, the REE market will work properly, regardless of China’s role.¶ If it makes more sense to cheaply import rare earths, companies should be permitted to do so. Rather than subsidize technologies the private sector won’t invest in without a handout, the federal government should open access to the 13 states where rare earths are known to lie and establish an efficient regulatory pathway that provides companies with the certainty needed to extract REEs.¶ If any national security need exists for rare earths, Congress should work with the Defense Department to ensure our military has what it needs. Furthermore, the Energy Information Administration can play a limited role in providing information on reserves, but that’s where the federal government’s role should stop.¶ Milton Friedman once said, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” He should have added that there’d be a host of unnecessary federal government

programs attempting to do things with the sand that the private sector has no interest in doing and is unwilling to do without government subsidies. When it comes to rare earth minerals and America’s abundant natural resources, the market will do just fine—if we just allow it work properly.

CP – Executive Agreement

1NC – CPText: The United States federal government will offer an Congressional-Executive agreement to the government of the People’s Republic of China that is modeled after the most current version of the U.S. – China Bilateral Investment Treaty, and will accede to that agreement.

Executive Agreement best method to implement BIT with China, alternative methods isolate the House.Miner 13 (Sean, China Economic Watch, “What is Happening with the BIT?”; https://piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/what-happening-bit)In July 2013, the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) sent out rumblings about a “big breakthrough” in negotiations on a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). The advance consisted of China’s agreement in principle to let companies make investments in China on the same terms as domestic companies. (This is known as a “pre-establishment” rule for investors.) China was also said to agree to list only those industries that foreigners cannot invest in, known as a “negative list” in the Foreign Investment Catalogue, as opposed to listing those areas that foreigners can invest in. These developments were significant in light of the tortuous history of the investment negotiations. Recall that the BIT negotiations started in June 2008, were suspended in 2009, and only resumed at the S&ED meeting six months ago. Yet surprisingly little has been said since then, even though the tenth round of BIT talks was held on October 21-25 in Washington. What is holding up progress? Not the lack of experience with BIT negotiations: China has over 100 BITs in force while the United States has 42. The main cause, apparently, is the current US Model BIT, published in 2012, which places stringent requirements on countries where US business interests might invest, so far accepted by very few countries. They include: Robust requirements that government agencies and state-owned enterprises be more transparent in their investment policies. Advance publication of proposed new regulations and policies, allowing time for comment. Firm commitment to avoid policies that favor domestic companies. Commitments from the Chinese government on enforcing labor and environmental standards in connection with new investment. Two-way direct investment has been asymmetrical. China’s FDI stock in the United States totals under $11 billion in 2012, and the US FDI stock in China totals more than $50 billion. While the official figures for Chinese FDI stock may be understated, the true figure is remarkably small in relation to China’s economic size and foreign exchange reserves. Moreover, China is the number one source for US imports, and the number three destination for US exports. How can the BIT talks come to a conclusion? The United States wants to accomplish several goals – and they all seem eminently reasonable, if Chinese leaders view greater foreign investment as an integral part of structural reform. The United States wants China to specify exactly which industries are closed to foreign investment. It wants fewer regulatory barriers, so investors can apply through one regulatory agency, like the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), rather than confront multiple hurdles. It wants to address the expanded use of the NDRC as a vehicle for targeting foreign companies for alleged anti-competitive practices. The United States wants to curtail the asymmetry of national security reviews: China’s process is regarded by investors as much more opaque than the US process. The Chinese, for their part, would like clarification of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) process. If concluded, the BIT should benefit both economies. As China slowly rolls out reforms -- exemplified by declarations at the recent Third Plenum of the Communist Party and the Shanghai Free Trade Zone -- a BIT could facilitate their implementation by smoothing the path for inward direct investment. Fresh investment in the Chinese service sector, which badly lags productivity levels abroad, would be especially important. Meanwhile, China wants to ramp up its outward direct investment. US unemployment remains

too high while productivity growth remains too low. Fresh Chinese investment could contribute to job creation and productivity gains. A future issue that deserves consideration is the US ratification process. As a treaty, a BIT would require a two-thirds affirmative vote in the Senate for ratification, but the House would have no say. It might be better to conclude an executive agreement rather than a treaty, change the name to a bilateral investment agreement (BIA), and seek ratification by majority vote in both chambers. This would give the House of Representatives a say, and avert the possibility of a blocking minority in the Senate (34 senators). If a BIT or BIA can be agreed between officials in both countries, and ratified by the respective legislatures, it could become a major building block for a new framework of US-Chinese economic relations. Companion building blocks could include three agreements under discussion in the WTO: the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). Together these building blocks would create a constructive framework for economic cooperation between two economic giants.

2NC – AT Normal MeansExecutive agreements aren’t normal means for BIT. USCBC ’14 – US-China Business Council, (“Bilateral Investment Treaties: What They Are and Why They Matter,” https://www.uschina.org/sites/default/files/2014%20USCBC%20BITs%20-%20What%20They%20Are%20and%20Why%20They%20Matter_0.pdf, DS)

What is the process for approving a BIT in the United States? At

the time of writing, the United States and China are in the early stages of negotiating the BIT. When the BIT text is final and ready for government consideration, the treaty will be submitted to the Senate and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations . Once

considered, the Committee may report the treaty to the full Senate favorably, unfavorably, give no recommendation, or choose not to act it at all. When a treaty has been reported to the Senate, it will be added to the Executive Calendar and considered in executive session. Two-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor of the BIT, via a resolution of ratification, in order for it to pass.

CP – Offshore Leasing

1NC – CPText: The United States Federal government should substantially invest in a a framework for offshore rare earth mineral mining.

New framework solves extraction – solves market incentive and tech issues – absent the plan, mining is ineffective – reduces dependenceFriedland 14 -- University of California Los Angeles JD candidate(James Friedland, “COMMENT: Under the (Territorial) Sea: Reforming U.S. Mining Law for Earth's Final Frontier,” http://www.uclalawreview.org/under-the-territorial-sea-reforming-u-s-mining-law-for-earth%E2%80%99s-final-frontier-2/ /KentDenver-NK]

Carefully controlled offshore mining could be a boon to the United¶ States. The nation stands to benefit from the price effects of increased capacity,¶ a more stable mineral supply, and job creation. That said, the benefits will not¶ be purely domestic: Unlike many other countries, our nation’s natural resources¶ sector is privatized rather than nationalized, so the public resources we make¶ available are available to multinational corporations alongside domestic mining¶ outfits. And even domestic companies sell the minerals they extract from¶ federal land on global markets. Therefore, because many of the benefits of¶ public mineral access accrue to international entities, the country has little incentive¶ to promote a reckless rush for domestic mineral development at any cost—especially because America would bear all the local environmental¶ damage.¶ In light of these conditions, a new legal framework for underwater mining¶ is vital. As discussed above, the current offshore mineral regime—though¶ admittedly not a blank slate—is close to one, especially because the current¶ regulations lack any particularly favorable provisions that the mining industry¶ might otherwise seek to preserve. OCSLA section 8(k) is not entirely misguided¶ per se; rather, it just barely begins to scratch the surface of what is necessary to¶ address the complexities of underwater mining.249 Thus, this Comment suggests¶ that OCSLA provides a good foundation, but is critically incomplete. In line¶ with that perspective, the proposals below would not necessarily require¶ standalone legislation; they could be crafted as significant amendments to¶ OCSLA, similar to the 1978 oil amendments discussed above. Nonetheless,¶ an effective regime will require both new legislation and new regulations pursuant¶ to that new authority.

CP – WTO QPQ

1NC – CPText: The United States Federal Government should [do the plan] and invite the People’s Republic of China to the World Trade Organization if and only if the People’s Republic of China significantly reduces the number of sectors on its Bilateral Investment Treaty negative list.

It creates a framework under which the US invites them into the WTO. Miner ’15 - MBA from George Washington University where he focused on international business and finance and has a bachelor's degree in government from the University of Texas, (Sean, “Why China Wants a BIT with the United States,” https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/why-china-wants-bit-united-states, DS)

Market Economy Status – Recognizing China as a market economy is not directly related to the BIT but could be part of a side agreement. China believes that the United States and all other WTO members should qualify China as a market economy by the end of 2016, per China’s WTO accession protocol. But the United States (along with the European Union), have refrained from guaranteeing that the United States will recognize China’s market economy status (and therefore the way it calculates antidumping and countervailing duties against some Chinese imports). The United States could assure China that it won’t resist in this area if a BIT is agreed.

China will use the WTO dispute-settling-body as political cover to avoid escalating trade wars with the US – but only formal inclusion of China into the WTO process causes long-term commitment that ensures peaceful settlementBown ‘9 (2009, Chad, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and International Business School at Brandeis University and a Non-Resident Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, "U.S.–China Trade Conflicts and the Future of the WTO," the fletcher forum of world affairs, vol.33:1 winter/spring 2009)

There were many events that did nothing but add fuel to the political fire. In 2005, for example, the Chinese firm CNOOC attempted to acquire the U.S. oil firm Unocal and was rebuffed on the grounds of national security by Congress. The 2007 year was beset by an epidemic of product recalls and U.S. import bans related to China's exporters-due to claims of chemicals such as melamine and diethylene glycol discovered in pet food and toothpaste, lead paint found in children's toys, defective radial tires, and banned antibiotics applied to farmed seafood.' The first half of 2008 saw new topics seep into U.S.-China trade tensions-including the growing financial clout of sovereign wealth funds, the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves, and the threat that the United States would im pose new border taxes to address failures to negotiate multilateral commitments to

reduce carbon emissions and from this laundry list of combat global climate change. 4 U The scary item to note from this they all took place despite laundry list of U.S.-China tensions is relatively good times for the that they all took place despite relatively good times for the U.S. economy and certainly well before the severe deepening of the financial crisis in the second half of 2008. Many expect U.S.-China trade frictions to only get worse in the face of an ongoing U.S. recession and worsening unemployment figures.5 History provides many examples of how a bad domestic economy creates just the right conditions for politicians to shut off imports in a misguided and desperate attempt to save jobs. Despite the fragility of the global economy and the risks it poses to the liberal international trading system, Beijing and Washington are unlikely to settle all of these (as well as any imminent) newly initiated U.S.-China WTO disputes without going through the formal WTO process.6 For one, there is a tremendous amount at stake in terms of market access, legal precedent, and politics. Second, each dispute requires many years of legal challenges and appeals that can be used to provide beneficial political cover to both sides. For the Obama administration, even simply continuing with the ongoing disputes that the Bush administration initiated will help diffuse some of the protectionist threat emanating from a Congress that is politically hostile toward China. Such a strategy could lead to tangible signs of Chinese reform "progress" that may be more difficult to negotiate in other settings. Third, it is not clear that the two indicators of greatest political concern to the Congress-the size of the bilateral trade deficit (still close to $250 billion for 2008) and the extent of renminbi currency revaluation vis-ii-vis the dollar (appreciating since July 2005, but neither sufficiently quickly nor with sign of increasing market oriented flexibility)-will see marked improvements anytime soon. Thus, Beijing also recognizes that if it were to settle the full complement of WTO disputes early, it would likely find itself the political target of new WTO disputes, if not something worse. Given the current economic insecurities as well as the state of bilateral trade relations, are China, the United States, and the WTO ready for their frictions over auto parts, film, media, and intellectual property to be at the center of formal dispute settlement? In these WTO disputes, what starts as seemingly harmless legal maneuvering and argumentation often turns into political battles, threats, and legally-sanctioned implementation of actual retaliation, and media-fed worries of an all-out trade war. Successful use of the WTO's multilateral dispute settlement process to diffuse Washington Beijing bilateral tensions is far from a foregone certainty. In order for the WTO dispute process to "work," both the United States and China need to act and react with political savvy and have an underlying, long-term commitment to the process and WTO system . Is China in particular sufficiently vested in the system? Is the system itself too vulnerable to hold up in such a politically sensitive and weak economic environment? As the history of formal dispute settlement reveals, a fully successful resolution to these and future disputes that the United States and China file against each other will involve dealing with some foreseeable, as well as many unforeseeable, pitfalls.7 The particular attraction to WTO dispute settlement is the potential for these legal disputes to not only diffuse political tension but also for their resolution to bring a "win-win" economic outcome to both sides market access gains to U.S. exporters and reforms that enhance Chinas economic growth. Nevertheless, success is by no means a certainty, especially in the current international climate of such economic and political volatility. Missteps by either side through careless mismanagement of the politics of the dispute resolution process could lead to stalemates and both sides becoming disenfranchised with the current rules-based trading system. Such an outcome would have serious consequences, as the WTO system needs both the United States and China to be confident and invested in the future of the institution. are in for some U.S.-China The bottom line is that we are fireworks. in for

some U.S.-China fireworks emanating from Geneva over the near term. There is value to a guide for what to expect along the way.

2NC – Solvencya) The plan gives the CCP a political cover.

Morrison ’15 - Specialist in Asian Trade and Finance at the Congressional Research Service, (Wayne M, “China-U.S. Trade Issues,” https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33536.pdf, DS)

Many analysts contend the negotiation of a U.S.-China BIT could have significant implications for bilateral commercial relations and the Chinese economy. According to USTR, Michael Froman, such an agreement “offer a major opportunity to engage on China’s domestic economic reforms and to pursue greater market access, a more level playing field, and a substantially improved investment environment for U.S. firms in China.” 106 For China, a high-standard BIT could help facilitate greater competition in China and result in more efficient use of resources, factors which economists contend could boost economic growth. Some observers contend that China’s pursuit of a BIT with the United States represents a strategy that is being used by reformers in China to jumpstart widespread economic reforms (which appear to have been stalled in recent years). This strategy, it is argued, is similar to that used by Chinese reformers in their efforts to get China into the WTO in 2001. Such international agreements may give political cover to economic reformers because they can argue that the agreements build on China’s efforts to become a leader in global affairs. This may make it harder for vested interests in China who benefit from the status quo to resist change.

b) The plan effectually grants China ‘market economy status’ under the WTO – that forces mutual long-term commitment.

Bader ’16 - senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council in the Obama Administration and a former United States Ambassador to Namibia, (Jeffrey, “A Framework for U.S. Policy toward China,” http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2016/03/us-policy-toward-china-framework-bader/us-china-policy-framework-bader.pdf, DS)

Support robust market-oriented economic reform in China that levels the playing field for private and foreign companies, including by negotiating a bilateral investment treaty or agreement that imposes commercial disciplines on state-owned enterprises and by granting China “market economy status” under WTO rules (note: this will be challenging during a presidential campaign but should be done as soon as it is politically feasible). Aggressively use the dispute settlement mechanism in the World Trade Organization and unilateral actions to protect technology and intellectual property of American companies.

c) It creates a framework under which the US invites them into the WTO.

Miner ’15 - MBA from George Washington University where he focused on international business and finance and has a bachelor's degree in government from

the University of Texas, (Sean, “Why China Wants a BIT with the United States,” https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/why-china-wants-bit-united-states, DS)

Market Economy Status – Recognizing China as a market economy is not directly related to the BIT but could be part of a side agreement. China believes that the United States and all other WTO members should qualify China as a market economy by the end of 2016, per China’s WTO accession protocol. But the United States (along with the European Union), have refrained from guaranteeing that the United States will recognize China’s market economy status (and therefore the way it calculates antidumping and countervailing duties against some Chinese imports). The United States could assure China that it won’t resist in this area if a BIT is agreed.

2NC – I/LA credible WTO dispute-settling-body is crucial to manage U.S.-China relations and offers the CCP political cover necessary for political stability. Castel-Fodor ‘13 [Kennan J. Castel-Fodor, J.D. Candidate (2014) at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, CASE WESTERN RESERVE LAW REVIEW, “Providing a Release Valve: The U.S.-China Experience with the WTO Dispute Settlement System,” vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 201-238, 2013, accessed 6.5.2014: JHR)

The Sino-American relationship remains a salient political issue within the United States, with the People’s Republic often vilified. A number of subjects tend to ignite the ire of the American public and Congress, including human rights, currency manipulation, and trade frictions. The U.S. administration’s engagement of China through DSB litigation conveys a strong political stance in instances of perceived violations of China’s international obligations. This litigation strategy toward China

helps to placate the American public’s anger as well as the calls for tougher legislation from Congress . The saber rattling from Congress can prove potentially catastrophic for U.S.-Chinese relations as protectionist trade legislation can spark damaging retaliatory policies from China. The U.S. administration can use WTO litigation to address issues preemptively before protectionist elements in Congress can act. For the American government,

WTO litigation provides a unique ability to diffuse political tensions that could have deleterious ramifications for the long-term benefit of the Sino-American relationship. While the Chinese government is not subject to the same democratic undulations, domestic pressure within China is of great concern to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political stability. Economic concerns are always at the forefront of the CCP’s domestic and foreign policy, as demonstrated through the maintenance of the currency policy that has caused much contention. Sometimes, China’s initiation of WTO litigation is the direct result of domestic concerns toward particularly prominent trading partners. Like the United States, the Chinese government can utilize DSB determinations to implement or speed up reforms that may not be particularly popular domestically. This is particularly true in situations in China where reform, without DSB determinations, would be untenable. The prospect of WTO litigation and the permeation of DSB norms throughout China can provide the CCP domestic credibility for instituting reformist policies. Increasing WTO litigation and improving Chinese legal savvy can also provide the indirect benefit of bolstering the Chinese public’s faith in not only the WTO and DSB but also other international organizations. This provides the CCP with a stronger trade dispute mechanism that would have more support from the Chinese domestic populace. A dedication to resolving trade disputes through the DSB provides the governments in Beijing and Washington both clout and political protection. Given the complex political landscape, using the DSB allows both the United States and China to vent domestic frustrations through an international legal forum. The use of the DSB as a third-party intermediary allows both governments to deflect losses while still resolving tense political frictions. The DSB allows the United States

and the People’s Republic to diffuse political tensions that can arise within a domestic market, especially with the public, media, and political figures.

K – Links

1NC – SecuritySecuritization of China is due to U.S. expectations.Shambaugh ’15 – Prof of Political Science @ George Washington, specializes in US-Sino Relations (David, “Sino-US relations: Divorce is not an option”, June 12th, http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/sino-us-relations-divorce-is-not-an-option//JC)

A QUALITATIVE shift in American thinking about China is occurring. In essence, the "engagement" strategy pursued since Richard Nixon across eight administrations, that was premised on three pillars, is unravelling. The American expectation has been, first, as China modernised economically, it would liberalise politically; second, as China's role in the world grew, it would become a "responsible stakeholder" - in Robert Zoellick's words - in upholding the global liberal order; and third, that China would not challenge the American-dominant security architecture and order in East Asia. The first premise is clearly not occurring - quite to the contrary, as China grows stronger economically, it is becoming more, not less, repressive politically. There are any number of examples, but political repression in China today is the worst it has been in the 25 years since Tiananmen. With respect to the other two, we are not witnessing frontal assaults by China on these regional and global institutional architectures. But we are witnessing Beijing establishing a range of alternative institutions that clearly signal China's discomfort with the US-led post-war order. Make no mistake: China is methodically trying to construct an alternative international order . This disillusion with China in America probably says much more about America than it does about China. One pattern has repeated

itself over the past two centuries of the relationship: America's "missionary impulse" to transform China in its image has repeatedly been disappointed by not understanding the complexities on the ground in China and by China's unwillingness to conform to American expectations. So, once again, this seemingly has more to do with the US and its unrealistic expectations, than with China.

1NC – Capitalism/NeolibThe U.S. is using the BIT as a means of economic imperialism to further exert capitalist will over ChinaSymonds 6/7/16 – member of prolitereat, author and editor for the World Socialist Workers (Peter, “US confronts China over trade, investment in Beijing talks, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/06/07/usch-j07.html//JC)

Just days after trading verbal blows at regional security talks in Singapore, top US and Chinese officials are facing off at their annual strategic and economic dialogue in Beijing. The meeting began yesterday, with confrontations over a range of trade and investment issues as well as rising tensions in the South China Sea. US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew set the tone with imperious demands that China slash overcapacity. “Excess capacity has a distorting and damaging effect on global markets,” he declared. He called on China to “substantially reduce production in a range of sectors suffering from overcapacity, including steel and aluminium.” Amid continuing global stagnation, the US is seeking to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto China and is threatening protectionist measures. Already, the US placed a tariff of 266 percent on some Chinese steelmakers in March, accusing them of selling below cost. Last month, the US Commerce Department announced separate tariffs of 450 percent and 522 percent on various Chinese steel imports. Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei defended his government’s policies, declaring that China’s industrial overcapacity had been “the subject of much hype around the world.” He said China had already cut 100 million tonnes of iron and steel production last year and intended to do more. Lou said China had been applauded internationally for its massive infrastructure stimulus package during the 2008–09 global financial crisis, pointing out that in the subsequent three years China accounted for more than half of world growth. “Now you are pointing fingers at China’s overcapacity issue. What were you saying back then?” he asked. China currently produces more than half the world’s steel. Its exports last year alone were larger than the output of any other steel-producing country. Facing growing threats of trade retaliation, the Chinese government announced plans in March to slash capacity in the coal and steel industries, axing 1.8 million jobs—1.3 million coal miners and 500,000 steel workers. The Obama administration, backed to the hilt by the American trade unions, is now pressing the Chinese government to make even deeper cutbacks, under conditions where Beijing fears social unrest will be generated by rising unemployment. China’s growth rate has fallen sharply already, from over 10 percent in 2010 to less than 7 percent. Lew also demanded the reduction or elimination of regulatory barriers to US corporations. “Candidly, foreign businesses wonder if they are welcome, and find China’s regulatory environment harder and harder to navigate,” he said. Ahead of the talks, the American Chamber of Commerce claimed that 77 percent of its members now felt less welcome, particularly as a result of “unclear laws and inconsistent interpretation.” Washington is pushing Beijing hard to revise its “negative list”—that is, the list of Chinese economic sectors closed to American investors. The previous list contained more than 40 sectors. US negotiators are insisting on a significant reduction as part of a Bilateral Investment Treaty that has been under negotiation since 2008. Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang indicated that Beijing would submit a new “negative list” next week. The growing intractability of US-Chinese relations was reflected in the remarks of Chinese President Xi Jinping, warning of the limits to diplomacy. “Some differences can be solved through hard work,” he told the bilateral meeting. “Some differences cannot be solved at the moment.” Xi was not simply alluding to the fact that Obama’s second term is drawing to a close, and the

dialogue in Beijing will be the last under the Obama administration. Rather, Washington’s trade war agenda goes hand-in-hand with its military build-up throughout the Asia Pacific and preparations for war against China . Obama’s “pivot to Asia ,” which is aimed at the

subordination of China to American economic and strategic interests, has dramatically increased tensions in Asia over the past six years . Nowhere is this more so than in the South China Sea, where the US has deliberately inflamed long-simmering territorial disputes as a means of driving a wedge between China and its neighbours, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam. A ruling is due this month in a US-backed legal case brought by the Philippines in the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague to challenge China’s maritime claims. The court ruling is threatening a further escalation of the disputes, heightening the risk of an incident that could precipitate a conflict. China has refused to accept the court’s jurisdiction. Speaking yesterday in Beijing, US Secretary of State John Kerry declared the US wanted “a peaceful resolution to the dispute in the South China Sea and opposed any country resolving claims through unilateral actions.” The remarks are entirely hypocritical, given Washington’s unilateral actions in directly challenging China’s territorial claims by provocatively sending US warships on three occasions within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit around Chinese-occupied islands. Treasury Secretary Lew’s trade war demands yesterday were matched by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter over the weekend at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Carter declared there was growing regional anxiety “about China’s activities on the seas, in cyberspace, and in the region’s airspace” and warned

that China “could end up erecting a Great Wall of self-isolation.” Carter backed the warning with a

thinly-veiled threat of military action. He boasted that the US had its most advanced weaponry in the Asia-Pacific and it would take decades for “anyone to build the kind of military capability the United States possesses .” Chinese Admiral Sun Jianguo retorted: “We were not isolated

in the past, we are not isolated now, we will not be isolated in the future.” The battle lines are being drawn on both the economic and military fronts. Unable to simply dictate terms economically due to its long-term decline, the US is reliant on its military might to try to get its way . This only heightens the danger that a minor incident in the South China Sea or another regional flashpoint will precipitate a conflict that spirals out of control.