US trade representative Susan Schwab
Up to now I have been perfectly able to ignore the Washington based paper mills, who are trying to get the WTO into a trade complaint procedure. But others, like China Hearsay, do take it rather serious, at least, they spend a lot of time on it.
I have been holding a short poll in the office and 100 percent of the people I asked said this is not going to mean anything and I should continue to have a life. We all know that the power of the central government to change this country is rather limited and that - even if the WTO would be able to come up with a verdicts - it would not mean anything.
What do you think?
Update: Got at least one honest reaction from a lawyer who says that the legal play is only very interesting for nerdy lawyers like himself. I can go out and have a life.
1 comment:
It depends on how one wants to look at it, and how one wants to play.
Yes. Perhaps the central government of China cannot do anything. But I do question if it is really true, OR perhaps they are just too self-interest and not wanting to do more???
But is this kind of publicity going to do China any good in the long run? Sometime the 'people' can do more than the government. And this time can be the people from outside of China. Do nto forget there are other 'people in this world that need a job' rather than just the Chinese. Should one under estimate these power??. Just look at what they did to the fur industry, OR the most recent pressure on the Dutch pension funds investments related to cluster bombs.
Perhaps we should also look into the environmental issues such as energy cost and CO2 productions. There are more and more journalists start writing or making media production questioning the logic of buying products shipped from afar, or the cheap products flooding the markets (mostly about apparels). Or if one pays attention to BBC, these days the call is buying local.
Or the social atmosphere in the Netherlands. The past months there are more and more display of outrage on how shareholders, hedge funds, top managements making millions while workers are being laid-off etc. These are first signs of social disqueiting. Perhaps one might say what has NL (or other western countries) got to do with China and the US and WTO? Well, simple. These are all basic human surival instincts and needs. We tolerate for a while of players who are big bullies, then we would revolt.
The Animal Farm is one book that we should never forget the lessons told. It is not just about the then Soviet Totalitarians. It is about any totalitarians.
A society can only survive when all members play fair games. China is 'buying' the world at the moment. And at the sametime is keeping the MAJORITY of her own citizens poor by artificially keeping the RMB under value. She is not playing far games to her own people. Neither is she fulfilling her agreement when signing her pledge to join WTO.
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