The Missile Man Behind China's 1 Child Policy

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 7/31/2008 12:27:00 AM
If this story sounds like a scene out of the world of Dr. Strangelove, it does: while doing some research on the origins of China's one-child policy, I came across this article in the well-regarded journal China Quarterly by Susan Greenhalgh. In her article, she identifies Chinese missile scientist Song Jian as the progenitor of China's one-child policy. If it weren't for his strong backing of the idea while having the ear of Deng Xiaoping, it probably is little exaggeration that China would be a significantly different place from how it is like today. It is a story of mind-boggling proportions, combining elements of cybernetics,...
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A Quickie Doha Post-Mortem

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,,, at 7/29/2008 07:29:00 PM
It comes as no surprise to probably anyone that the mini-ministerial did not produce much in the way of results, let alone a conclusion to the long-running Doha round before collapsing yet again. Perhaps the anti-globalization protesters kept away in droves because they knew that nothing would come out of this process, anyway. Save the plane fare and just catch the gory details of how all the negotiators' efforts came to naught in the end. Geneva may be lovely in the summertime, but that is not good reason enough to watch yet another sorry episode of the Doha World Tour, which will go on and on. Although I wished that I would...
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Last Chance Saloon at the WTO

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/29/2008 02:07:00 PM
I have to run but the BBC has a video clip featuring the Indian, Chinese, and European negotiators commenting on what should be the last day at the mini-ministerial in Geneva attempting to salvage a deal. A big sticking point is over the so-called "Special Safeguard Mechanism" (SSM). Should India or other LDCs experience a surge of imports, tariffs can be applied to certain agricultural goods. What is on the table is for this SSM to come into effect given a 40% increase in such imports. India, joined by that other major LDC, China, argues that a 20% increase should be sufficient to trigger the SSM. More in a while...it's going down to the wi...
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Fritz Hollings: US Was Built on Protectionism

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/29/2008 12:06:00 AM
Former US Senator Fritz Hollings had some interesting things to say in an interview with Bill Moyers of PBS. One of the things you often hear from heterodox economists sympathetic to Third World concerns is that, oftentimes, countries that are now developed widely used protectionist policies to nurture their own industries in the past. As a matter of historical fairness, then, it is only proper that developed countries not demand LDCs to lower their trade barriers so rapidly a la the Washington Consensus recipe of liberalize, privatize, and deregulate (e.g., the work of Ha-Joon Chang [1, 2]). Of course, the current state of...
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Obama: (Trade) Nightmares of My Half-Brother

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/28/2008 12:06:00 AM
Barack Obama's first bestselling book was entitled Dreams of My Father. It seems, however, that he may not find some of his other relations so, well, dreamy. The press on this side of the Atlantic has been all agog over Obama coming over to enlighten us primitives. Nonetheless, while the Times is mock-extolling Europe's undeniable choice for next American leader, it currently features another article with decidedly sinister undertones. I haven't the slightest idea about how this article became the Times' most-read, but that it is at the moment: there is a feature in the newspaper on Obama's half-brother, Mark Ndesandjo. Potentially...
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The Wrath of Nath: Deciphering India's WTO Stance

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 7/24/2008 01:22:00 AM
Many pundits (including yours truly) were surprised when the then-ruling BJP party was booted out by Indian voters in 2004. With its mantra of "India Shining," the BJP thought it could capitalize on the emergence of the Indian economy from the self-deprecatory "Hindu rate of growth" to something decidedly more pacey. Left out of the BJP's calculation were the many marginalized who felt that the benefits touted by the BJP did not reach them. In contrast, the Congress Party has typically adopted more egalitarian rhetoric. The Gandhian legacy remains strong, and Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath is surely not one who is outside...
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Unexpected: US Mulls India's Mode 4 Proposals

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/24/2008 12:32:00 AM
After the seemingly endless stream of negative rhetoric which has poured forth from Geneva thus far, this news is potentially welcome: The United States has actually begun to consider India's proposal to allow freer migration of service professionals to perform temporary contract work in the US. What's more, the EU signals that it too may be amenable to such overtures. Needless to say, this development could be something big. In the past, the US has treated so-called "Mode 4" migration of the sort described above as a migration and not a trade issue (see earlier post for an overview). However, it seems to be softening its stance here. I suspect that while India with its large pool of knowledge workers stands to benefit a great deal, the US is also considering repeated requests by American technology firms to allow more skilled foreign workers to ply their trade Stateside.One of the things I keep telling my students is not to treat the "Third World" as a monolithic bloc. Divergence...
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LDCs to EU/US: Take Your Ag Proposals and Shove It

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 7/22/2008 07:51:00 PM
Day 2 at the Doha mini-ministerial came and went with nary a trace of improvement as negotiations continue to fray along North-South lines. Earlier on, the EU tried to get the ball rolling on agricultural issues by offering to cut current tariffs on agricultural products by 60% instead of just 54%. LDCs weren't impressed by this, however. Next, the US said that it was now willing to cap agricultural subsidies to $15 billion per annum from a previous ceiling of $48.2 billion. This would look impressive were it not for the fact that the US is currently spending about $7B on agricultural subsidies. This figure appears low since...
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Good Fun: The Varieties of NGOs

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/22/2008 01:05:00 AM
The current issue of the European Journal of International Relations features an article by Norbert Gotz concerning how the field of International Relations (IR) has largely neglected non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in relation to more standard IR fodder. As the field of International Relations has been quite state-centric in the past--inter-national--there has been some debate on how these organizations should be entered into the mainstream study of IR. As Gotz so aptly describes, IR is marked by "Westphalian nomeclature." The paper is quite a good read even if I don't really agree that it's mainly a matter of definition via negative language claims ("non-government") which require consideration. In particular, I am struck by this rather gratuitous passage on the proliferation of NGO forms as well as NGO catchphrases on pp. 232-33: Best established of the sub-concepts is probably the INGO, the international non-governmental organization. The same phenomenon as projected...
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The Lameness That is Doha, T-Shirt Edition

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/21/2008 08:53:00 PM
Oh dear, it's not a very good sign when the gift shop at WTO headquarters is now taking part in poking fun at the Canterbury Tales-length negotiation process officially known as the Doha Development Agenda. Agence-France Presse has cleverly entitled its feature on the T-shirt sales as "been there, done that, got the T-shirt." Actually, it's "been there, done that, saw the movie, bought the T-shirt." Unfortunately, I highly doubt that there are enough dramatic elements to make much of a box office hit out of the Doha round [zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]. Even the anti-globalization protesters have been resolutely lame in the busting up...
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Cancunized: Brazil Says 4 More Years of Wait OK

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 7/21/2008 12:09:00 AM
Whoa, this latest salvo from the Brazilian Foreign Minister and chief negotiatior on behalf of the LDCs prior to the upcoming WTO mini-ministerial meeting in Geneva makes me even more curious about what will happen. Figuratively speaking, the Doha round has been traumatized, anesthesized, lobotomized...and now, perhaps deeply Cancunized after that legendarily tragicomic ministerial meeting in 2003. In the event that the rich industrialized countries are unwilling to move on agriculture, Celso Amorim is saying it would not be an especially big deal if the round were delayed for another four years [and the crowd chants, "four...
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Pre-Hyperinflation Zimbabwe: Mugabe, A Love Story

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/20/2008 08:50:00 AM
Where do I begin to tell the story of how great a love can be? In the not-so-distant past, Robert Mugabe was regarded as a hero of the global independence movement from the shackles of colonial rule and its offshoots. His struggles against white minority rule in what was then known as Rhodesia under Ian Smith, who unilaterally declared independence from British rule, are well-known and need little recounting here. At the current time, however, sympathies for Mugabe have largely disappeared in light of his attempts to establish a stranglehold on Zimbabwe. In particular, the severity of Zimbabwe's current bout of hyperinflation...
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I Hereby Invoke Godwin's Law for the WTO Talks

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/20/2008 08:14:00 AM
Those hoping for a breakthrough in the upcoming WTO mini-ministerial meetings had better look away: Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim has launched a definite low blow on the upcoming WTO trade negotiations by comparing developed countries' rhetoric on agricultural subsidies to propaganda strategies employed by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels [!] Those who have engaged in, shall we say, "heated" Internet discussions know Godwin's Law as that wherein flame wars degenerate into Nazi references somewhere down the line. To avid international economic diplomacy junkies like yrs. truly, this development is not a surprising...
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The Joyless Economy: Roubini is Our Scitovsky

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 7/19/2008 01:11:00 AM
I have followed Nouriel Roubini's rise from a well-regarded academic whose speciality is international economics to one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" according to Foreign Policy. Although economics blogs can be somewhat dry, Roubini's has always been a pleasure to visit with its incorporation of rich cultural references and its unabashed crankiness setting it apart from most. It is not much of a stretch to think of the American economy in terms of a Greek tragedy. Like all good stories, the relative decline of the United States which he catalogues has the ingredients of a good tragedy according to Aristotle:...
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It's Official: PRC Loses to US in Auto Parts Case

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/19/2008 01:04:00 AM
It's now official: the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) has ruled in favour of the United States in its case against China regarding auto parts (DS 340). In February, I noted that a preliminary ruling was made in favour of the US along with the EU and Canada on discrimination against auto parts originating from the countries mentioned. The ball is back in China's court. It can abide by the decision or challenge the ruling at the DSB. However, if it chooses the latter option, then it will be subject to retaliatory tariffs against its exports should the ruling be upheld.While news stories like those of Bloomberg and the Financial Times [HT: Trade Diversion] are correct in pointing out that this is the first defeat for China at the DSB, China backed down earlier on a more recent case filed by the US against it before further proceeding. The case in question concerns auto parts exports by the US, EU, and Canada to China for which Chinese authorities levied tariffs equivalent to...
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