No, they were doing that before the TPP was negotiated, and the TPP was in response to their behavior. TPP was never about free trade in the sense that NAFTA was, and was always about Chinese encirclement. That post was my attempt at reviving the debate on here over TPP, which the community consensus is basically, "Fuck you; you're evil for even suggesting Bernie Sanders isn't Jesus incarnate. Hillary Clinton is a corporatist pig and so are you for saying nice things about TPP." (Something like that, anyway.) Trade deals make some people poorer and some people richer, but it's up to us to decide how to promote economic opportunity domestically. That has nothing to do with trade deals. TPP was and remains a good idea, and it is never coming back....after the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal went under, China has been trying to position itself to be even more of an economic influence.