RETHINKING ASIA
The WTO's Big Losers
By Walden Bello
June 24, 1999
For many Asians, the stalemated candidacy of Thai Deputy Prime
Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi for the post of
director-general of the
World Trade Organization is yet another sign of the
unwillingness of the
United States and other traditional trading powers to
seriously
accommodate the interests of East Asia in the international
trading system.
There is a good historical basis for this view. One major
reason the loose
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was transformed into
the powerful
World Trade Organization during the Uruguay Round of global
trade talks
was to contain the Asian economic challenge and prevent the
diffusion of
what was regarded as the mercantilist Asian development model.
Many Asians also regard the Gatt-WTO Agreement on Agriculture
as a
mechanism for dumping U.S. grain surpluses in the region. The
agreement
will be the focus of global trade negotiations during the next
few years.
Whether or not a "Millennium Round" of comprehensive,
multisectoral
negotiations is launched, the 1994 Marrakesh Accord mandated
the
opening of new negotiations on agriculture at the end of this
year.
On the eve of those talks, the countries of East Asia are
divided on
whether to support further liberalization of agricultural
markets. Northeast
Asia, particularly Japan and South Korea, are opposed to more
liberalization, fearing it would mean the extinction of their
small rice farmers.
Indeed, it is said that Japan is supporting the European
Union's call for a
new round of comprehensive negotiations to give it flexibility
in defending
agriculture.
Southeast Asian countries find themselves on the other side of
the fence.
They are part of the Cairns Group, an informal bloc of big and
medium-sized developed and developing agricultural exporters.
The Cairns
Group supports the broader and faster liberalization of
agricultural markets
via increased market access, an end to export subsidies and a
decrease in
production subsidies in the North.
Interestingly, Southeast Asian governments find themselves on
the same
side as the U.S., which has joined with the Cairns Group to
push for market
opening in Japan and South Korea and an end to direct income
subsidies
for EU farmers. In a classic instance of double standards, the
U.S.
Department of Agriculture has stoutly defended forms of direct
income
subsidies for American farmers, but the Cairns Group seems
unwilling to
challenge Washington.
The position of Southeast Asian governments, however, serves
mainly
organized lobbies of cash-crop exporters and processors such
as
Malaysian palm-oil plantations, Philippine coconut-oil
exporters and
Bangkok-based Thai rice middlemen. The vast majority of
unorganized
small farmers in these countries are harmed by this position.
The quid pro
quo of more open markets for products such as palm oil and
coconut oil in
the North is even greater liberalization of the rice and corn
industries in
Asia. Some agricultural experts warn that the governments of
the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations are allowing themselves
to be
dragged by hardline Cairns Group countries such as New Zealand
and
Argentina into positions that will ultimately bring great harm
to their small
producers.
Rice farmers in Malaysia and rice and corn farmers in the
Philippines
already bear the brunt of the damaging effects of the Uruguay
Round. Thai
farmers are hardly benefiting; it's the Bangkok-based
middlemen that are
profiting from increased Thai rice exports. Further
liberalization that serves
mainly the interests of the American agricultural-product
dumping lobby
and a small elite of Asian agro-exporters will drive the
region's small
farmers over the edge.
That's why it's important for Asean governments, small farmers
and
consumer groups to closely study the anti-liberalization
arguments of the
Japanese and South Korean governments. They say small-farm
agriculture
in Asia, though it may seem inefficient in terms of unit cost,
actually
produces net gains because agriculture is "multifunctional":
It protects
biodiversity, guarantees food security, promotes rural social
development,
is part of a nation's cultural heritage and enhances the
regional landscape.
Agriculture is more than just an area of production. It is,
for millions in
both Northeast and Southeast Asia, a way of life. The greatest
threat to
small-farm communities in Asia and throughout the world is
further
WTO-decreed liberalization of agricultural markets. Free
marketeers say
greater openness will bring greater efficiency, though they
fail to show
how this squares with the fact that the main beneficiaries
will be subsidized
U.S. and European farm interests. The likely outcome of such
openness is
the bankruptcy of small farmers and their transmogrification
into
marginalized masses pouring into Asia's big cities.
Like Asia as a whole in the WTO process, Asia's small farmers
have been
big losers in the global trade-liberalization game. It's time
to stop the
bleeding.
The writer is professor of sociology and public administration
at the
University of the Philippines and co-director of Focus on the
Global South,
a programme of the Chulalongkorn University Social Research
Institute.
craig k harris
department of sociology
michigan state university
429b berkey hall
east lansing michigan 48824-1111
tel: 517-355-5048
fax: 517-432-2856
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail