|
APEC Looses Its
Way
Edited by Alan Marston
As officials, ministers and Leaders of the 21 APEC (Asia Pacific
Economic
Cooperation) member economies meet in Shanghai, GATT Watchdog
in New
Zealand has accused advocates of free trade and investment of
exploiting
popular sentiment and war hysteria in the wake of the September
11 attacks
to add new impetus to a discredited market model of economic development
and a regional forum going nowhere fast. APEC foreign and trade
ministers
agreed on "the critical importance and urgency" for the launch
of a new
round of global trade talks under the auspices of the
World Trade
Organisation (WTO), a rather desperate measure to squeeze every
ounce of
plolitical capital out of a dying ideology.
APEC has been on life support for several years now. Internal
tensions
among the 21 APEC countries has as predicted by GATT Watchdog
paralysed
efforts to speed up and broaden trade and investment liberalisation.
When
the Seattle WTO talks dissolved in chaos the tide had been turned
even
further against the economic model promoted by APEC and the WTO
over the
last two years. In desperation the cheerleaders of economic liberalisation
at APEC are trying to cash in on the September 11 events to revive
the
forum and its goals," said GATT Watchdog spokesman, Aziz Choudry.
"GATT
Watchdog has always maintained that APEC was primarily a forum
for trying
to build regional support for deals in other arenas like the WTO,
rather
than for reviving the economies of the region. APEC is nearly
dead but it
has spawned bilateral and sub-regional trade and investment agreements
such
as last year's Singapore-New Zealand Closer Economic Partnership
agreement
and the one currently being negotiated between New Zealand and
Hong Kong
which seek to stitch up a web of deals to deliver the outcomes
which APEC -
and the WTO itself - has failed to achieve. "With only a few weeks
to go
before the WTO Ministerial meeting, the divisions within the 142
member
global trade body remain as wide as they did in Seattle. Some
hope that
the US-led "war against terrorism" could help forge consensus
and rally
domestic support for economic liberalisation. The US government
is making
an all-out effort to capitalise on September 11 to advance its
own economic
and political agendas - to "counter terror with trade" as US Trade
Representative Robert Zoellick puts it. The New Zealand government
seems
to be meekly dancing to its tune."
Choudray added "While governments in APEC member countries like
New Zealand
and the USA preach to the rest of the world about the desirability
and
inevitability of open markets and free trade, they are providing
massive
bailouts to privatised industries at home. If the free trade and
investment, free market model is so fantastic, why are market
forces not
now deemed sufficient to stabilise these industries? "The Helen
Clark-led
government seems as gung-ho about trade and investment liberalisation
as
its predecessors. We have always maintained that privatisation
- part of
the package of policies promoted by APEC - was about siphoning
public
wealth to private companies. The Air New Zealand crisis is a clear
example
that the privatisation process has come full circle. The public
has lost
out twice - first when it was privatised and then when it was
bought back.
"The global free market agenda has led to deepening inequalities
within and
among countries, underdevelopment, environmental degradation,
and
increasing power of transnational corporations which dominate
the global
economy. "An August 2000 report to the UN subcommittee on the
protection of
human rights called the WTO a "veritable" nightmare" for developing
countries. It said WTO rules "reflect an agenda that serves only
dominant
corporatist interests that already monopolise the area of international
trade."
Mahathir warns of globalization dangers
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, known as repressive
at home has
consistently taken an anti-freedom stance internationally too,
anti
free-trade. Speaking yesterday on the sidelines of the APEC summit
in
Shanghai, Mahathir Mohamad salled on developing nations to fend
for
themselves in an age of globalization.
He said that in many poorer areas of the world there had been
many losers
from globalization and very few winners and it was increasingly
important
for smaller nations to protect themselves. If globalization was
to be
sustainable, he said, there should be "many more winners and many
fewer
losers, and they should both be a mixture of the rich and the
poor. "The
winners must not win to an obscene extent, and the losers must
not lose
to an equally obscene extent," he added. "It is true that if you
open the
windows to let in the air, a few flies will fly in," the Malaysian
leader
told regional business leaders. "We must open the windows -- but
if you
open the windows and packs of bears and tigers storm in, perhaps
we should
open the windows on the second floor and keep on those on the
ground floor
closed"
His comments elicited applause, particularly from Chinese representatives
in the crowd of executives. Malaysia is one of the most nationalistic
countries in APEC, and has been one of the laggards as the group
seeks to
reduce trade tariffs to zero by 2010 for developed APEC countries
and 2020
for developing ones.
Mahathir noted the threat that the seven million richest people
in the
world posed to small countries, saying they have 2.7 times the
cash to
invest than the total value of goods and services produced by
America last
year.
Malaysia has stopped its currency, the ringgit, from trading freely
because
it blames financier George Soros for single handedly destabilizing
it
during the Asian financial crisis. Mahathir noted that of the
200 largest
economic entities in the world 51 are corporations and only 49
are
countries. He said he saw very little hope that there would be
a unified
move toward "enlightened globalization". "The rich and powerful
are in full
command," he said. "They will concede what they must to get what
they want,
but they will yield very little.
He called on Asia to establish a unified currency system, and
to set a new
path in a world he lamented viewed greed as good and selflessness
and
service to the common good as mental illnesses. "God helps those
that help
themselves - this was true before the days of globalisation, it
is true
today, and it will be in the days after."
Earlier Saturday Mahathir met with US President Bush for a bilateral
session Saturday morning in which he raised concerns about the
mounting
civilian casualty count in Afghanistan.
|
|
