Published on December 13, 2005
This week’s WTO meeting requires flexibility if it wants to be considered a success
Re: “WTO forum must deliver”, Editorial, December 11.
I agree with the editorial’s conclusion that the world cannot afford to let the crucial World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting break down this week. Indeed, the representatives of the 148 WTO member countries will start in Hong Kong the most important 2005 event in multilateral commercial diplomacy Yet the WTO Ministerial Conference is being considered by some politicians as a non-event, a certain failure or “largely irrelevant”. Ministers will be called in Hong Kong to decide on a variety of far-reaching issues, contained in almost 40 pages of a draft declaration. It will be very difficult to finalise it in a few days and adopt it by consensus. The draft text, put out by the WTO’s current director-general, Pascal Lamy, shows there are wide differences about nearly everything: opening up the services sector, reducing tariffs in the manufacturing and vital agriculture sectors. In spite of that, some optimists say: “We hope the Hong Kong meeting will achieve essential progress.” The WTO’s previous director-general, Supachai Panitchpakdi, however, insists that the outcome shouldn’t be looked at as a success or a failure. “Don’t look at Hong Kong [as another] Seattle, Doha or Cancun. Unlike those WTO meetings, Hong Kong doesn’t have any explicit mandate. It is just another meeting to gather momentum for successful completion of the Doha Round,” he said. “Recalibration” of expectations in Hong Kong is an imperative task. No amount of negotiations can resolve the gap in existing positions of groups of countries without a genuine political will to reach a win-win situation for all. Otherwise, we must agree with the World Economic Forum’s executive chairman, Klaus Schwab, who warned: “If Hong Kong fails, business will lose trust completely in multilateral organisations.” But diplomatically speaking, the WTO cannot fail. Probably another ministerial or mini-ministerial meeting will be planned for 2006. Yet even for that hypothesis, flexibility, creativity and an authentic spirit of responsibility are urgently needed. Rigidity brings the risk of losing a unique opportunity to help achieve a strengthened, improved and fairer multilateral trade system that must function properly during the present irreversible process of globalisation. Ioan Voicu Bangkok ------------------------------ The current hoopla over farm subsidies is simply nonsense Re: “Failure on farm-subsidy issue will be costly: Oxfam”, Business, December 12. Oxfam International wants the World Trade Organisation to be a welfare programme rather than a trade organisation. The rich countries are supposed to give away what generations have worked to build? Capitalism is the key to prosperity. Stop whining and give it a try. And stop with the hypocrisy about EU and US subsidies. Most nations subsidise farming and industry in one way or another. Steve Snyder Nong Khai ------------------------------ Asean is little more than a toothless tiger lacking claws Re: “The quest for an identity”, News, December 8. Meetings, colourful pageants, flag-waving and cultural shows are the only real achievements of Asean, an organisation that has proved to be mostly dysfunctional when it comes to real issues in the region. Take, for example, something as simple as the annual haze problem. It is a quintessential regional issue. The haze originates in an Asean country. It is caused by slash-and-burn agriculture financed by corporations from multiple Asean countries. The smoky haze that the fires cause is a regional Asean-wide health hazard. If there were ever a regional issue that should be tackled by a regional association, this would be it. Yet each year, as the haze chokes our Asean countries, we start anew as if surprised that such a thing could occur. Regional meetings are held and righteous pronouncements made. Asean issues ineffectual and toothless agreements. Bureaucrats say that a solution is at hand. We wait out the haze until the rains come. The next year, we do it all over again. Asean is apparently unable to come up with a regional solution even to something as regional and well defined as the haze problem. What good is it? Cha-am Jamal Phetchaburi ------------------------------ It may not be morals making Asean get tough with Burma If a husband and wife are having a quarrel in a neighbourhood that’s not too quiet to begin with, do the neighbours have the right to interfere in that quarrel, take sides and tell the husband that unless he acts in accordance with their values of how a couple should behave, they will send a neighbourhood watchdog group to demand an explanation? Particularly since they are embarrassed that the couple’s behaviour might tarnish the good reputation of the whole neighbourhood in the eyes of other, more distant ones? Add to that that the husband’s intention to move to another part of the house (say, the upstairs), which he didn’t tell his neighbours about, has also offended them, and they want an explanation for that, as well. Outside that neighbourhood are swankier ones whose inhabitants look at the former with some disdain and superiority, although wanting very much to incur its goodwill so that it can develop its green, unspoiled spaces for their own condos and other businesses, in the process lining the pockets of the “leaders” of that neighbourhood, as well. But the swankier areas threaten not to help this neighbourhood out unless its self-appointed “leaders” do something about that unruly couple. What’s the real agenda for Asean to go after Burma? Is it simply a moral thing? We can understand why the big boys of the world are bashing Burma: the country has thumbed its nose at them, and they simply don’t like a little pipsqueak nation whose GNP is about the size of Harvard University’s endowment telling them where to get off. But why Asean? Someone’s doing some arm-twisting or offering some goodies, which in any other context but the political one is called extortion. And what if Burma decides enough is enough and leaves Asean to join China, perhaps in a counter-Asean organisation? Is that what Asean really wants? I think Asean should consider its own collective interests, but not act in ways that simply ape the hypocrisy of their distant and swankier neighbours. Michael Aung-Thwin Professor of Asian Studies University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, Hawaii ------------------------------ Maybe there’s another Khao Lak in a parallel universe? Re: “Premier’s promise still a pipe dream”, News, December 11. While Nantiya Tangwisutijit’s report refers to yet another of Prime Minister Thaksin’s unfulfilled pledges, I was dismayed to read Deputy Prime Minster Suwat Liptapanlop’s remarks. In the report, Suwat is quoted as saying that “everything is back to normal” in Khao Lak. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Suwat must know that. Suwat, I too have been to Khao Lak recently. I conclude that you must refer to another place called Khao Lak. My first impression was how, in a year, so little had been done to restore Khao Lak. The rebuilding of hotels is far from complete, with much of it not even commenced. The whole area is still strewn with debris and rubble from the tsunami, adding to the chaos of the construction work underway. This is hardly attractive to tourists and certainly not an achievement about which the government can boast. It is no wonder that Prime Minister Thaksin makes such questionable decisions when he is so ill informed by his subordinates. Government ministers have a duty to provide accurate information to both the Thai people and the government. Suwat, concealing the truth from the Thai people is not acceptable. Assuming it is true that you actually went to Khao Lak, why not tell the whole truth? Doesn’t it bother you when the truth is misrepresented? It should certainly bother the prime minister as he looks for reasons behind his and Thai Rak Thai’s waning popularity. Sibeymai Bangkok ------------------------------ Thaksin alone is not powerful enough to cause society’s ills Re: “Pondering Thai citizens’ rights”, Editorial, December 10. Blaming Thaksin for “single-handedly” destroying Thailand’s image, reputation and basics in human rights is faulty at best. If Thaksin represents one thing and one thing only, it is the short-sighted nature of the Thai people in getting whatever they can for themselves and their snaky friends and the heck with everyone else. This charge might seem ugly and simplistic, but even His Majesty the King and Prem Tinsulanonda have many times called Thai society corrupt and greedy. From people plugging up footpaths so they can “earn a living” – despite putting everyone else in danger – to acting just as corrupt as the next person when they enter political office, this idea that Thaksin is solely to blame for Thailand’s ills is merely another version of “the proletariat have no clothes”. The fact that HM the King found it necessary to come out in his birthday speech last week to chide Thaksin for ridiculous legal filings is a testament to the near-total lack of ethics in Thai society. Thaksin should have enough common sense not to sue critics in the first place, but a malicious nature and vindictiveness have won sway over Buddhist professings. Thaksin’s initial problems with asset concealment and the shocking retention of Chavalit Yongchaiyudh in the early Thaksin government – and as shocking now, bringing this non-intellectual dinosaur back into the political fold – are all part and parcel of an unethical, selfish and greedy society that wants to blame everyone else for its problems except those whom it should blame, the people: teachers, students, farmers, politicians, monks, community leaders and followers, all of whom have contributed to this morass of evil, greed and short-sighted “Gimme mine first!” attitude that has destroyed Thailand’s image far more than could one single man. Frank G Anderson Nakhon Ratchasima
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