Prole

I learned the earthquake calamity across south Asia region through the TV news few days ago, then get shock and very worried about the people there. After setting on the TV for a while, however, I found that one can really know very little about the local people there through the medias.

What those Western controled madias most concerned is the western tourists, added Taiwanese here. Some reporters are even busy on comparing the tsunami with some Hollywood's movies. Excepting this is the news about ambulance corps take off from whatever developed countries, who were been looked forward deadly by the helpless victims to "save" them, according to those medias. A friend said she remembered one BBC reporter saying, sri lanka is now on her knees waiting for international assistance to arrive....!!!

Well, those victims do need help. But they alreadly doing it, not just waiting there. To say somethings like that just exposes their superior imaginations of themselves. Western tourists are also victims, of course, but they are surely not the main ones. Why their experiences won so many close-up shots while the much much more local people were treated like simple objects, or even background, and mostly showed in the form of figures?

Even the earthquake itself is a natural disaster, people’s responses are not.

【左看】 看見跨國公司
文 李亮／文字工作者

面對東協與中國進而與日韓即將形成的自由貿易區，不論此岸或是彼岸，羨妒或是歡呼，這種種議論皆以國家為單位，卻全然忽略了一個基本常識，即跨國公司，尤其是歐美日的跨國公司在經濟中的作用。

要知道，當代的國際貿易很大程度上是歐美日跨國公司的內部貿易，在許多第三世界國家，歐美日的跨國公司更掌握了一國的經濟命脈。這些外資在中國1999年的總工業生產中佔有21％，2001年的出口總額中佔有51％，在2000年的高科技產品出口中更佔了81％；今天的中國，從電信、製藥到汽車等一系列高技術產業，幾乎全是外資天下。在這種情況下，中國進一步對東協開放，不過是在為這些外資服務，讓它們取得更廉價的原料與更廣大的市場。

東協方面的情況一樣糟。以菲律賓為例，至今出口主力仍是初級原材料；即便帳面上對中國出口不少電子產品，但實際上卻從外國進口更多電子零配件，再以這些零配件簡單組裝之後出口或內銷。而且，這整個過程的主控者仍是跨國公司。

明乎此，當知中國與東協的自由貿易區，不論如何吹噓，都是這些跨國資本的棋局；其中的國家政府，不過是跨國資本的代理人。

原載 台灣立報言論廣場 2004-12-01
http://www.lihpao.com/

By Jennifer del Rosario-Malonzo
IBON research department head


China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are poised to sign a free trade agreement this month. As one of the original members of ASEAN, the Philippine government expects to increase market share of Philippine products and services in China.

The Arroyo government believes that the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA), potentially the world’s biggest trade bloc with a combined consumer market of 1.7 billion people, will create an array of opportunities for the Philippines.

But given China’s success in the export of labor-intensive manufactures, China is a threat to many developing countries, including the Philippines. With its low wage rate, China is highly competitive in labor-intensive assembly operations of high technology products.

Moreover, the deluge of cheap imports from China may prove CAFTA to be disastrous rather than beneficial for Philippine agriculture and industries, which are already beleaguered by undue foreign competition as a result of liberalization.

CAFTA in focus

ASEAN and Chinese economic and trade officials agreed to establish a free trade area by 2010 with the six founding members of ASEAN, and by 2015 for the newer members. This plan complements the ASEAN Free Trade Area’s (AFTA) target of zero ending tariff rates on all products by 2010 for the original six members and by 2015 for the four new members. ASEAN founding members are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, while Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam joined later.

Officials agreed to start tariff cuts next year. Under the free trade deal, most goods (around 3,900 categories) traded between ASEAN and China will have zero import tariffs by 2010 under what is termed the normal track I scheme. Import tariff cuts will start on January 1, 2005.

However, trade in some 490 categories of goods will be fully liberalized by 2012 through the normal track II scheme. The 490 categories, called the normal track II list, resulted from domestic industries requesting for some flexibility in the liberalization process. There are a total of 5,250 categories of goods traded between ASEAN and China.

The agreements on trade in goods and services and on dispute settlement mechanisms were finalized during the 36th ASEAN Economic Ministers meeting in Jakarta last September.

The free trade pact will be signed at a China-ASEAN leaders’ summit in Vientianne, Laos this November. The agreement is expected to improve China-ASEAN trade volume, which has been growing at an average of 15% over the last decade.

According to Chinese statistics, bilateral trade between China and the 10 ASEAN members reached US$78.2 billion in 2003, making the group China’s fifth-largest trading partner. Chinese and ASEAN officials projected that trade volume of both sides would reach $100 billion in 2005.

ASEAN’s 500 million people, or roughly 17% of the world’s population, make it an attractive market. With the integration of China and the ASEAN, First World countries are looking at this part of the globe with renewed interest. Foreign investors and corporations would be looking at a market of almost one-third of humanity.

RP prospects under CAFTA

China is the Philippines’ sixth largest trading partner in 2003, accounting for 5.38% of Philippine trade. China accounts for 5.99% of total Philippine exports or $2.14 billion, and 4.79% of total Philippine imports or $1.79 billion.

The Philippines has been trying to enter the Chinese market, particularly the electronics industry, business process outsourcing and e-procurement.

Large purchases in the populous country has prompted procurement firms to expand operations in China. The country buys 20% of steel purchases in the world and a substantial volume of electronics equipment and parts. Research organization Morgan Stanley reported that advanced engineering market in China would grow 30% annually for the next five years due to global demand for personal computers and mobile communications. China will meet only 15% of this demand, which will grow to $346 billion in 2004.

Whether the Philippines can compete in this potential market is doubtful. The government considers the electronics sector as one of the economy’s “strengths” due to revenues generated from the export of electronics-related products. But electronics-related components and equipment are also the top imports of the country, reflecting the inherent lack of technology to support production and the assembly-type nature of the sector. In fact, the top merchandise imports of the Philippines from China are electrical machinery, apparatus and appliance, which accounted for 6.3 percentage points in the country’s imports in the second quarter of 2004.

In the area of investment, China is a tough rival for developing countries in Asia. It is proving to be a magnet for foreign direct investments (FDI) because of its low wages. It cornered over 80% of total FDI to Asia last year. About 70% of this went to the IT business districts of Yangtze Delta, the Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the Pearl Delta and Tianjin.

While the expected benefits from the CAFTA are uncertain, the negative impact of liberalized trade has already ravaged the agricultural and industrial sectors of the Philippines.

Under the AFTA Common Effective Preferential Treatment (CEPT), the Philippines’ average applied preferential tariff rate as of 2001 is only 3.87%, lower than the 6.7% average applied tariff rate under the World Trade Organization (WTO). Roughly 99% of the country’s tariff lines are already included in the CEPT scheme in 2001.

Due to the liberalized regime of the WTO and AFTA, cheap imported vegetables from the US, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Singapore and China flooded the Philippine market, from 42,000 metric tons in 1995 to 115,000 MT in 2000. Thousands of metric tons more were smuggled into the country as a result of more liberal import policies.

Industry groups have also cited the adverse effects felt by petrochemical, cement, steel, garments/textile, footwear and ceramics/tiles industries. For example, many footwear manufacturers, overwhelmed by cheap imports from China, have now become mere assemblers of imported shoe parts or shifted to trading. The greatest impact is on the workers who are laid off or forced to go on rotation.

Geo-political factor

Regional free trade agreements (FTAs) play an important role in the global economy as economic barriers are dismantled more swiftly in bilateral and regional arrangements, which explains why, despite concerns over their proliferation, the WTO permits such agreements.

China’s accession to the WTO in 2001 created a significant change in the global trade and investment environment. Its huge market presents opportunities for exporters to enter or expand commercial interests. At the same it is a threat to developing countries because of its success in exports of labor-intensive manufactures and its low wage rate.

The rise of China changed the regional landscape in two ways. On the one hand, China’s new role as a link in the production network contributed to the growth of intra-regional trade. On the other hand, China became an active player in developing institutional frameworks to promote regional integration. The first element firmly positioned China as an indispensable member of regional economic frameworks in East Asia and reinforced the second element.

China’s engagement in regional frameworks started in 2000 following earlier moves by other regional economies. In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, Japan and Republic of Korea had started to explore free trade agreements as a trade policy option and both started to shift away from their dependence on the WTO.

For its part, China, having agreed in November 1999 with the United States on the terms of its accession to the WTO and being stimulated by the regional trend towards bilateral free trade agreements decided that it should also use FTAs as a policy tool. Since its proposal to ASEAN in November 2000, China has moved swiftly so that one year later, China already convinced ASEAN to establish the CAFTA. In October 2003, beginning with Thailand, China started to implement the so-called early harvest measures to eliminate tariffs on some fruits and vegetables.

China’s moves prompted Japan to accelerate its steps toward an economic integration agreement with ASEAN that it had contemplated since the launch of FTA negotiations with Singapore. The United States also boosted its interest in the region and announced the Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative in October 2002 and the launch of FTA negotiations with Thailand in October 2003.

The November 2001 agreement between China and ASEAN to negotiate a free trade agreement sent a shock wave to Japan. A Japan-ASEAN comprehensive economic initiative - which would include a Japan-ASEAN free trade agreement was proposed by Japan. While pursuing regional initiatives, Japan is also aggressively negotiating bilateral deals. Japan’s first bilateral FTA is with Singapore, and the next is with Mexico. It has decided to start negotiating with the Republic of Korea, and is discussing possibilities with Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It is in line with these efforts that Japan and the Philippines are also seriously hammering out their economic partnership agreement.

China and Japan’s motivations behind regional initiatives are influenced not just by economic but by geo-political considerations as well. Japan has long been the leading economic power in the region. However, the decade long recession that is going on in Japan is increasingly weakening Japan’s leadership in the region. Meanwhile, China’s new approach of preferential trading with the rest of the region opens the door for it to seize the opportunity to replace Japan as the primary driving force for economic growth and integration in the region.

As China and Japan wrestle for leadership in Asia, the Philippines’ backward production and economic maldevelopment would only make it a sorry victim drowned by the swell of Chinese and Japanese commodities. IBON Features

IBON Features Vol X. No 54
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ibon/message/329

【左看】 郭台銘的階級本能
文 李亮／文字工作者

鴻海以鉅富之姿，自4月份起向法院申請假扣押工商時報一記者財產3千萬，後經媒體披露才引發眾議；日前雖經鴻海與工商時報發表「和解」聲明，但整個事件卻留下諸多疑問。

最大的一個問題是：為什麼是針對一線的記者，而不是報老闆？我們知道，一般企業的產品若發生問題，企業主需負最大責任，因為他對整個生產過程擁有監督、控制的權力，至於生產線上的工人，則另有不同的規定處理。那麼，為什麼在這個事件中，獨獨是針對該名記者，而不是整個報社、報老闆或總編輯？難道身為企業主的郭台銘不知道，一篇報導，正如同一件產品，從採訪到見報的整個生產過程，都處在資方的指揮、控制之下嗎？為什麼他不會合理地懷疑是報老闆要整他呢？

顯然，這是郭台銘的階級本能使然；他在第一時間便把媒體工人與資方切分開來，認定他的敵人是這些媒體工人，逕行發起攻擊，而報老闆乃至主管們則是可以溝通的同一階級的朋友，適合談判、商量乃至和解。由此觀之，郭台銘對「新聞自由」的攻擊，實是在維持、運作這套階級制度，教訓工人。

原載於:台灣立報言論廣場 2004-12-22 http://www.lihpao.com/