Caroline Lucas and Vandana Shiva
Monday
July 4, 2005, The Guardian
As
world leaders prepare to meet in Gleneagles, against the backdrop
of activist protests and the Make Poverty History carnival
in full swing, their pursuit of ever-freer international trade
is in the dock as never before.
Anti-poverty
and development campaigners are united in their support for
the Make Poverty History campaign, which demands an increase
in aid, debt cancellation and, crucially, reform of the rules
governing international trade.
At
the same time, the EU - the world's second largest trading
bloc - is in political crisis, thanks to voters' rejection
of the EU constitution in France and the Netherlands, driven
partly by concerns over the EU's enthusiasm for economic globalisation.
In
rejecting the constitution, France and the Netherlands in
effect joined the list of countries, both rich and poor, that
are calling ever-more loudly for protection against the impact
of cheap imports. This is fuelled, at least in part, by the
penetration of the world's textile markets by China, after
protective quotas were abandoned earlier this year.
According
to the European Apparel and Textile Organisation (Euratex),
the EU's textile sector risks losing 1,000 jobs a day, and
up to 1,000,000 jobs before the end of next year, prompting
it to call for the introduction of quantitative restrictions.
In
response the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, agreed
a stop gap deal with China in May to slow down its rate of
take over of the EU market to about 10% a year for three years.
Severe
as these impacts are for Europe, for many developing countries
they will be devastating. Since the 1980s, largely as a result
of the quota system in place until this year, many have built
a huge dependency on the textile sector. In 2000, it accounted
for 95% of all Bangladesh's industrial goods exports, in Laos
93%, Cambodia 83%, Pakistan 73%, Sri Lanka 71%, and Nepal
61%. The sector employs more than 1.8 million workers in Bangladesh,
1.4 million in Pakistan and 250,000 in Sri Lanka. Little wonder,
then, that at the end of last year several dozen developing
countries made an 11th-hour appeal to the WTO to save their
textile industries from Chinese imports - it fell on deaf
ears.
The
accession of China to the WTO in 2001 is likely to be seen
as a turning point in the battle against free trade as livelihoods
are lost all over the globe. Eventually rich and poor nations
will be forced to ask themselves: is there any sector in which
China does not have a comparative advantage based on cheap
labour and ever increasing technical expertise?
The
other Asian power, India, is - like Europe - facing a political
backlash against economic globalisation. Last year India's
farmers, who make up 70% of the population, voted to throw
out the BJP government and its championing of "shining India".
This emphasised an urban, hi-tech, open market future. But
India was not shining for the majority of her farmers and
for the last few years Indian activists and those campaigning
for real trade justice have been calling for increased self
reliance and trade rules that benefit the poor.
These
negative experiences of free trade have informed Make Poverty
History's demand for a trading system that allows poor countries
to protect themselves from damaging imports.
However
at Gleneagles it is apparent that there is a glaring contradiction
between this demand and the G8's interpretation of "trade
justice". The latter is a free market travesty of such a programme.
The UK chair is a cheerleader for it and, needless to say,
a critical questioning of the G8's fundamental commitment
to economic globalisation has never been on the table.
As
a result, the summit will remain primarily a vehicle for pushing
ahead with the free trade project shared by these, the world's
most powerful men. The G8 countries will doubtless drop a
few more crumbs of aid to their poorer neighbours, and may
even keep their pledges to cancel some of the debt with which
so many developing nations are shackled. However the effects
of this apparent largesse will be swallowed up many times
over by the negative impact on poor countries of being forced
to open their markets to international competition.
Whatever
gloss the post-summit statement puts on it, the result of
all this free trade emphasis is, in fact, to make poverty
inevitable.
Yet
as trade specialists from the north and south we know that
regardless of the results of the G8, the threat to livelihoods
worldwide from freer trade will continue apace, as will the
political reaction against it. This will centre on an increasing
clamour for protective barriers, both north and south. This
demand could be a crucial step towards really making poverty
history while allaying the fears of the no voters in Europe
worried about the threat to jobs of cheap imports and relocation.
The
present open market emphasis of the G8, WTO and the EU urgently
needs to be replaced by trade rules that encourage the protection
and diversification of domestic economies.
They
should also allow exporting governments to set the terms of
the trade so that they benefit the majority of their people,
rather than the interests of big business at present encoded
in the WTO's "free and unfair" trade rules.
This
approach would allow the G8 to offer its peoples a more secure
economic future but one that interacts with the rest of the
world in a way beneficial to the poor everywhere, thus meeting
the desires of all of us worldwide who are seeking to Make
Poverty History.
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