Dear RN,
Perhaps you remember me wondering who has been sending us some very
interesting postings all of a sudden from this CyberBrook
<•••@••.•••> address?
Turns out this is someone Richard met up with while he has been working and
fomenting revolution :-) in California.
Good to hear from you, Dan, and vicariously from Ricahrd too.
all the best, Jan
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Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 14:41:25 -0800
From: CyberBrook <•••@••.•••>
Subject: California & Chomsky
RKM signed me up for this list recently, after we had the good sense and
fortune to meet earlier this month, so I'm new to RN. I'm more of a
forwarder than a writer these days, but I try to do both. Between the kids
in my classes and my own 3 yr old kid at home, I'm both busy and
distracted. I'm a contingent worker teaching sociology at the University of
California in Davis, where I earned my Ph.D. They've been kind enough to
keep me on while I've been unsuccessfully looking for a more secure
teaching job. Not wanting to bore anyone, I'll post further details only
upon request.---Dan
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Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:49:44 -0800
From: CyberBrook <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Opposing China's Entry into the WTO
The Right and Wrong Reasons for
Opposing China's Entry into the WTO
by Robin Hahnel
www.zmag.org (the very useful ZNet Site)
www.zmag.org/Commentaries/donorform.htm
(here's how to sign up, donate, and get a commentary like this one
every day, while supporting an important alternative media outlet)
For the past seven years the Clinton Administration has asked
Congress to extend China Normal Trading Relations (NTR) status
for a year at a time. Opponents have argued that China does not
deserve such status because the Chinese government denies its
citizens basic democratic political and human rights. The
Administration has argued that while partly true, the behavior of the
Chinese government is improving, and a policy of "engagement" is
more likely to advance the cause of democracy and human rights
in China than a hostile policy of trying to isolate China from the
civilized world community. After a great deal of demagogic and
hypocritical posturing on both sides, Congress has always voted to
extend China NTR status for yet another year. This year the
Administration is asking Congress to grant China permanent NTR
status because unless Congress does so, US businesses will not
be able to take advantage of the deal the Clinton Administration
recently negotiated with the Chinese government for its entry into
the WTO, while foreign businesses will.
There are those in the US who oppose China's entry into the WTO
because they always oppose anything they deem to be in the
interest of "Communist" China and contrary to the interest of the
government in Taiwan. They oppose China's entry into the WTO for
the same reason right wing Cuban Americans oppose lifting the US
blockade against Cuba - they think the more belligerent the US
government is toward a government they have always sought to
bring down, the sooner that government will fall. These are the
people who have made greatest use of the annual debate in the US
Congress over whether or not to extend China NTR status. They
have used the debate as yet another forum to denounce godless,
totalitarian Communism. Since these are the same people who
supported Pinochet, Mobutu, and Suharto until the bitter ends of
their bloody regimes, and who voted not to join the international
boycott against the Apartheid regime in South Africa, it is clear
they have no sincere interest in democracy or human rights. They
are hypocrites, pure and simple.
There are also those who oppose China's entry into the WTO
because they sincerely support democracy and human rights and
think US trade policy should be used to punish governments who
violate political and human rights. In other words, they believe in
"linkage" and denounce the Clinton Administration as hypocritical
for its failure to reconcile its economic and human rights policies
toward China. Some who take this position on China and the WTO
are on unimpeachable moral ground. But there are a number of
problems with this position:
First, who is the US government to sit in judgment of the human
rights records of other governments?
(1) The US government is the most serious abuser of human rights
outside its own borders of any government in the world.
(2) While the US government does not violate the human rights of
anyone inside the US according to the US State Department, I'm
sure the Foreign Ministries of China and Iraq say the same for
themselves. If we consult an external source such as Amnesty
International the US government stands accused of numerous
human rights violations within its own borders.
(3) The US government has a long history of denouncing human
rights records only of regimes we deem unfriendly and overlooking
the most heinous crimes of regimes provided they support US
policies. As a matter of fact, sometimes the same regime, with the
same policies, changes overnight from being described as a
government in good moral standing to being demonized as a "new
Hitler" or drug pusher merely because it opposed a US government
foreign policy objective - as happened with Sadam Hussein in Iraq
and Manuel Noriega in Panama.
Second, is the Chinese government a worse violator of human
rights than many other governments already within the WTO? If so,
is someone opposed to admitting China also demanding that other
human rights violators be expelled? The lobby pressuring Congress
to grant China permanent NTR status reads like a Who's Who of
major US corporations, banks and insurance companies who have
already spent billions of dollars because they know they stand to
gain hundreds of billions (see Hahnel, "China and the WTO" in the
January issue of Z). This business lobby bought the Clinton
Administration years ago, which is why the Administration excuses
Chinese government human rights violations, pretends the
violations are on the wane, and argues illogically that engagement
is more effective than isolation in the case of China, while isolation
is more effective than engagement in the case of Cuba.
Administration critics are completely right to point out that Clinton's
China policy is yet another reminder, if one were needed, that his
proclaimed devotion to human rights is opportunistic, hollow, and
hypocritical.
In sum, the annual debates over NTR status for China have been
among the political low points for a Congress and Administration
with a great many low points to choose from. Which poses a
serious dilemma for those of us in the movement opposed to
corporate sponsored globalization as this year's China debate
begins.
Mike Dolan of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch was quoted on
the front page of the Wall Street Journal on December 6, 1999 right
after the victory in Seattle saying "China. We're coming atcha.
There's no question about it. The next issue is China."
Jeff Faux, President of EPI, a liberal economic think-tank, was
quoted in the same article to the effect that it would be impossible
to get labor and environmental standards included with China in the
WTO because China is a dictatorship and too big to push around.
Rob Scott, also of EPI, wrote in the last issue of Working USA in
1999 that China should not be allowed in the WTO, among other
reasons, because it engages in "market distorting government
policies, including requirements for technology transfer to domestic
firms, local content and offset requirements."
John Sweeney denounced the Clinton Administration China deal as
soon as it was announced, and AFL-CIO spokeswoman Denise
Mitchell announced: "The China vote is going to become a proxy
for all of our concerns about globalization."
But Marty Hart-Landsberg, writing in the progressive economists
network [PEN_L] is one of many thoughtful left economists who
have expressed concerns: "What I worry about is rather than
capitalism, or even MNCs, or even the WTO as the enemy, we now
suddenly find that China is the enemy and that we need to keep it
out of the WTO so that we can preserve the potential for reform [of
the WTO]. Very scary."
And Alexander Cockburn lashed out at Dolan, Faux, Scott, and the
AFL-CIO in his column in the January 3 issue of The Nation saying
he does not "feel comfortable at the sight of Western progressives
execrating China," and he does not think "we should be trying to
keep China out [of the WTO.]" In the February 14 issue of The
Nation Cockburn elaborated: "By all means boycott prison-made
commodities from China. But everything? China's credentials for
the WTO are just as good as those of the US, so the arguments for
keeping China out seem pretty rickety and hypocritical to me."
Like Dolan, Faux, Scott, Sweeney, and unlike Hart-Landsberg and
Cockburn, I think the movement against corporate sponsored
globalization should oppose China's entry into the WTO. But it is
very important to do so for the right, not the wrong reasons.
We should not oppose China's entry on grounds of human rights
violations. Don't get me wrong. Unlike the Clinton Administration, I
do not excuse nor make light of Chinese human rights violations.
The Chinese government denies its citizens the right of free
speech, the right to organize politically, the right to organize
independent unions, the right to strike, the right to a fair trial, and
the right to privacy. The Post-Mao government has routinely
resorted to arbitrary arrests to suppress dissent, and has not
hesitated to imprison millions and kill tens of thousands to
maintain its monopoly on political power. And these abuses, along
with others, are more than enough reason to give Chinese citizens
"the right to rebel," in Mao's words, and replace totalitarian
Communist rule with a system of political democracy that protects
human rights and civil liberties. But all these violations of political,
labor, and human rights do not distinguish the Chinese government
from many of the 135 governments who are presently members of
the WTO in good standing. If someone wants to draw up a list of
minimal political, labor, and human rights countries must observe
to be WTO members; if someone wants to design a fair arbitration
process for judging when governments are in violation; if someone
wants to review the status of present WTO members according to
the same standards applied to all applicants, not just China; I
would consider supporting such a reform proposal. But until that is
what is proposed, it is hypocritical to oppose China's entry
because of violations of political and human rights. Nor should we
oppose her entry on grounds that China engages in "market
distorting policies." Some of those so-called market distorting
policies are among the best policies of a Chinese government that
all too often badly serves the economic interests of its citizens and
increasingly fails to promote economic development that is
environmentally sustainable and egalitarian. Progressive opponents
of corporate sponsored globalization should never permit
themselves to be seduced into defending the position that fair trade
can only take place between countries whose governments never
intervene in the market place. Our position should be support for
greater intervention in the marketplace, until such time as markets
and the economics of competition and greed they embody can be
replaced altogether with a non-market system of equitable
cooperation. Instead, US opponents of corporate sponsored
globalization should oppose China's entry into the WTO on grounds
that it will adversely affect the lives of the great majority of Chinese
as well as the lives of a majority of Americans.
In the January issue of Z I evaluated the deal struck by the current
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the Clinton
Administration in great detail. It is a deal that serves the interests
of important segments of the ruling elite in each country. But it is a
deal that sacrifices the interests of an overwhelming majority of
Chinese peasants and workers to the interests of some in the old
Party elite and many in the newly educated elite -- just as it
sacrifices the interests of most Americans to the interests of
powerful segments of the US business community. This is not
China vs. America. This is not a deal that is detrimental to the
interests of a majority of Americans but in the interest of the
majority of Chinese - as Alexander Cockburn erroneously asserts.
This is a deal that enhances the economic prospects of a small
minority who are already better off in both countries while
significantly diminishing the economic prospects of the majority in
both countries. Which means it is a no-brainer -- if Alex would only
resist the temptation to bash a few US liberals and take the time to
analyze the predictable consequences of the deal inside China.
Radical opponents of corporate sponsored globalization can
oppose China's entry into the WTO in good conscience - as long
as we do so for the right reason: China's entry is detrimental to the
interests of the vast majority of Chinese as well as the majority of
Americans. Only because Chinese peasants and workers are kept
less informed and more repressed than US workers and
environmentalists do we hear fewer voices from inside China
echoing our own cries for an end to corporate sponsored
globalization. It is not the movement against corporate sponsored
globalization that usurps the sovereign right of the Chinese
citizenry to determine their own destiny when we oppose China's
entry into the WTO on the terms negotiated by the Chinese
government. An undemocratic, self-serving Chinese government did
that when they negotiated the deal, just as the corporate
globalizers with the help of their political and intellectual
handmaidens have usurped the right of economic self-management
of the global majority over the past two decades. There is no
reason not to extend our shout "Ya Basta!" to ensnaring the
Chinese masses into a corporate dominated global system that
enriches a wealthy few particularly at the expense of the most
wretched of the earth, which is where the vast majority of Chinese
will sink even further if the deal goes through.
