Writing always needs strength, someone said before. Amy finally get that strength to go back to my blog. After some rest at home, Amy is now crazy in the fantastic WTO Ministerial Conference 6 in Hong Kong.
Described as a conference which will not get a satisfied result, the city, Hong Kong, still trys to show ministers from the world its full energy and good management.
"If no achievement could happen in such a beautiful city as Hong Kong, how ministers do that in the other cities", said Bo Xilai, Chinese Commerce Minister, who leaded a over-100-delegate group to attend the conference.
Unfortunately, Bo's colleagues are not open as Bo does. They refuse to talk to media; no press briefing; no attending the public debate; not to say to communicate with the non-profit organizations from China, though there are only two.
We could say China's low profile is its way to avoid attack; but in such an organization with 144 members, how you could avoid attack? U.S. is there, speaking, though under attack; European Union is there, under attack, too. But at least they show their attitude, make their negotiation transparent. On the other side, see developing countries who are more poor and smaller than China, they are also giving their voices. It is an organization, where everyone will forget, or discrimate you when you don't speak anything.
In such a worldwide conference, I know we could justify a country's strength from its economy, or population; let's hear its voice publicly......
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4 comments:
Hi Amy, you back. Well, when it comes to the WTO, I'd say it's comparable with all those other big political disputes (like in the European Union): the talks "behind the curtains" are more important than public speeches, that are just rethorical sweets for the masses anyway.
As there will very probably no "grand move" happening this time, just like last time in Cancun, I think it's understandable if some members start to lean back. Mainland's problems with the WTO wouldn't be solved in such a gathering anyway, huh?
I just read they formed an allegiance with other countries to block some industrial imports. Just like everybody else--every nation wants to sell their goods to somebody else, but they try to refuse imports (I guess mostly because of internal power-struggles). Germany does exactly the same, even though we utterly depend on our exports (as far as I heard, we germans are 5 times more intertwined with global economy and export/import than the americans, e.g.)... I think people are too afraid about global economy...
:) <- Lutz
oh, really? How come people in the second-biggest trade country be afraid of the global economy??????????
I think it boils down to this: germans are pretty afraid of global competition, having a quite low self-image. I don't know if this is justified, but the following issues get discussed in GER very vivid:
German income and taxation is among the highest and complicatest in Europe (and probably worldwide), if you take all non-wage labour costs into account. This translates into very high unit labour costs--so the german industry is constantly afraid of inexpensive foreign competitors, and the german government needs to pay high subsidies e.g. on food or coal to keep up globally.
German education became more and more of a "non-issue" in the recent ten or fifteen years. Nowadays it gradually shows that Germany is lagging behind in terms of school or university-grade education (in the recent years there were a lot of comparisons between education in different european countries, called "Pisa-Tests", and Germany always was on one of the last ranks).
And a serious issue in GER is our overcomplicated law and bureaucracy, which is incredibly expensive and inertial. Just keep in mind: 70 percent of ALL tax-literature WORLDWIDE is about german taxation--this is crazy... :P
Germany is crawling on the edge of economic recession since some 5 or 10 years something (our economic growth barely 1 percent), and I don't see how this is going to change with our new government...
:) <- Lutz
hmmm. sounds not that good. I think the problems are not just with Germany, but also many European countries. I am now reading a document from a workshop held in Europe. It says, "Europe's competitiveness comes from technological excellence, visionary leadership and creativity." hoho, I agree so. If the region could maintain that, it will keep its competiveness.
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