The possible premature end of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), signed last year, should sound the death knell of American preeminence in Asia. But since influence would automatically pass to China, it would also raise some strategic issues whose solution is far from being adequately handled by Beijing. Should Trump pull the United States out of the Treaty right after having taken office, the Communist leadership would be left alone in the daunting task of sorting the two sides of the Pacific out of a period of uncertainty.