Capitalists drool with visions of profit
By Shawn Whitney
Just days before the opening of the WTO in Seattle, China and the US signed a path-breaking trade deal that will open the door to China's participation in the WTO.
It also opens the door to massive profits for western multinationals and misery for China's people.
In response to the deal being signed, US President Bill Clinton said:
"In opening the economy of China, the agreement will create unprecedented opportunities for American farmers, workers and companies to compete successfully in China's market while bringing increased prosperity to the people of China."
This trade agreement will cut tariffs and average of 23 percent. It will also provide greater access for US banks, insurance companies, telecommunications firms, agriculture goods and Hollywood films into these previously closed sectors of China's economy. US companies will now have access to Chinese distribution networks and auto companies will be allowed to offer vehicle financing.
American business is drooling at the prospect of gaining entry into one of the world's fastest growing economies with a potential consumer base of 1.2 billion people. For the market reformers in China this deal and the hoped for entry into the WTO will be used "as a crowbar with which to open up China's economy."
But this won't lead to the bread and roses that our leaders are promising us. In China it will lead to huge increases in unemployment as state run industries are forced into bankruptcies adding to an already massive army of unemployed. In the US it will also undermine industries which cannot compete with the low wages of China's labour intensive industries such as textiles.
According to the conservative journal, The Economist, "China has a bottomless pool of cheap. reasonably efficient labour."
Further, besides the negative social and economic effects which this trade deal will have on both working populations, it also gives the lie to Western governments' claims to be interested in defending human rights. In the summer of 1999 NATO troops bombed Yugoslavia supposedly in order to defend Kosovo's right to self-determination. China continues to occupy and repress the population of Tibet and yet the potential profits to be made ensure that it gets a trade deal not bombing raids.
Cuba, that perennial thorn in America's side as a symbol of resistance to US imperialism is excluded from all trade and trade deals supposedly because it lacks democracy. However, the present president of China is Jiang Zemin who was complicit in the bloddy crackdown of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In fact, as the deal was being signed, the Chinese government was clamping down on a semi-religious self-help group known as the Falan Gong with an estimated 20 million followers.
This shows the hypocrisy and dishonesty of our political leaders and businessmen. If they cannot be trusted when they claim their actions are driven by humanitarian concerns, then they cannot be trusted when they claim their deals will benefit the vast majority of humanity. What drives their policies is the quest for greater and greater profits and the strategic interests of empire building. In the present period, trade deals play an important role in their policy plans.