The ABC's of the WTO, The PRC and the ILWU

A major problem faces the world economy today. In order to escape from poverty and set out on the road to development, the poorest nations have got to be able to sell more goods to the rich, developed nations. Though the rich countries have promised to open their markets, these promises have not been fulfilled. 

UN head Kofi Annan points out that the average tariffs which the rich countries impose upon the undeveloped countries are four times as high as those which they levy on other rich countries. (PI 11-30) While poor countries have responded to pleas to cut their own tariffs, the rich nations have not followed suit. Their cuts have been timid and lag far behind. 

And it seems that, whenever an undeveloped country begins to export a competitive product. it is accused of "dumping." Take the case of Brazil. Brazil has drastically reduced its tariffs on such things as computers, Harley Davidson motorcycles, and artificial flowers. There used to be a factory in Brazil making artificial flowers out of silk. It employed 120 people. 

"You know how a wave wipes out a castle made of sand?" declares the former owner of the factory. "That's what happened to us." But what does Brazil get in turn? Though it is the world's largest coffee producer and the second-largest producer of soybeans, it is stymied in it's efforts to find a ready market because of high tariffs. (NYT, 12-2)

Yes, the rich countries contribute foreign aid, though often it has strings attached. But it has been estimated that protectionism by the advanced nations costs the poorest nations about $70 billion dollars a year. And this is about 14 times what these countries receive in aid! (PI, 11-30)
This unfair situation will not last forever. 

China is a huge developing country whose economy has made rapid strides of late, and his very close to being admitted to the WTO. As its very first objective within the WTO China asserts that it will strive to satisfy the need of developing countries for "gradual market opening." (BEIJING REVIEW, 12-20-99) 

Now the recent protests in Seattle have attacked the WTO as if it were bad in itself. It was called a "set up to protect corporations from the regulations of democratic societies." (WORLD TRADE OBSERVER, 12-2. p.5) Corporations have created their own superstate, we are told, that is more dangerous than fascism. (Ad in NYT, 11-26) 

Under the aegis of the WTO. an irate letter to the PI declared, "dignitaries will meet to figure out" how they can eliminate all obstacles to the "corporations" ability to rape, pillage and plunder the planet." (11-21) 

A SEATTLE TIMES editorial condemned the faceless outfit in Geneva." (l1-28) The NATION termed the WTO "a private club for deal-making among the most powerful interests.' (12-27, p.5) And our own DISPATCHER published a cartoon equating the WTO with Hitler. (Sept, 99)

These comments contain a germ of truth. In the past, a few big powers have dominated the WTO. As former representative Don Bonker pointed out, "in past trade talks a few major countries, led by the United States, cut a deal and everybody else obediently went along. That did not happen in Seattle." (PI, 12-8) 

The trade representative from El Salvador complained that the US and a few other big countries "think they can meet in small gatherings and then announce that the two or three most important countries have already come to a consensus." (NYT, 12-3) 

The big powers tried to pull the same trick once again in Seattle. They held a separate meeting without the participation of the developing countries. But this time the poor nations refused to accept such treatment. 

Latin American countries issued a joint statement to show their indignation against their exclusion. They said they would refuse any agreement reached without their participation. Fifty-three members of the Organization of African Unity sent out similar warnings. (BR.12-20)

This revolt was the big story of the Seattle meeting. The WTO is changing and will never be the same. The poor countries are going to stand up for their rights. The blanket condemnations of the WTO as a Hitler-like group have not been helpful to those tying to find out what really happened in Seattle.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot continue to live in a fantasy world. As a representative from Argentina declared to a reporter in Seattle: "It's terribly sad to me that we have let people tell so many lies, sow so much hatred. It's the responsibility of every government here to answer the lies with facts. If they are lazy, the result will be more broken glass."  

Long Yongtu, the chief of China's trade delegation at the WTO, told the same reporter: "Globalization is not a thing that everyone naturally understands. If you don't explain the ABC's of the WTO, then yes! people will be opposed." (NYT, 12-2)

As union members, we naturally feel solidarity with unionists in other lines of work. We do not cross picket lines. We look for union-made labels. We are all too familiar with situations where bosses, eager to make a buck, have oppressed their workers. But our union consciousness may, if we are not careful, allow demagogues an opening to pull the wool over our eyes. 

Many were the union members, marching in protest against the WTO, thinking they were taking a stand against such evils as child labor. But in actual tact, by opposing the WTO (the new, invigorated WTO, beefed up by China and a new determination of the poorer countries to stand up for their rights) they were opposing the all-out efforts of the "third world" to escape from poverty, which is the real cause of child labor.

When President Clinton declared that he wanted to end child labor, he singled out several examples of it, one of which was the shoe industry in Brazil. Brazil took umbrage at this remark. There is certainly child labor in Brazil. 

There is child labor wherever families are desperate, cannot afford to send their children to school, but must instead use them to produce additional income. 

In the shoe industry, however, UN studies show that Brazil has taken great strides toward eliminating child labor in recent years. In Franca, the center of the shoe industry, it has been entirely eliminated. 

So why does Clinton pick on shoes instead of the coal mines in rural Brazil where the bulk of child labor is concentrated? The answer is simple. Brazil exports shoes but it does not export coal. (NYT, 12-7)

Besides shoes. Brazil would like to export more orange juice to the US. but it is stopped by trade barriers. It would like to export steel, but it is accused of "dumping." 

It would like to export sugar, but, in the words of the Australian trade minister, the sugar market is "one of the most distorted in the world." As Bruce Chapman points out. US sugar quotas "favor a tiny elite in Florida and Louisiana, hold up high sugar prices in the United States, and keep down cane production in Central America and the Philippines." (PI, 12-1)

As union members, we are sympathetic to calls for a boycott. We refused to buy lettuce and grapes to help the farm workers. We answered the call not to buy Coors Beer. 

But now we are being asked not to buy shoes from Brazil, not to buy vegetables from Mexico, not to buy textiles from Bangladesh. not to buy anything at all from China. In joining such international boycotts, are we really showing solidarity with the workers in other countries?

I remember several years ago, when a union brother asked me why I had bought a car from Japan instead of an American car. I told him that they have union workers in Japan, too. Plus the tact that it was discharged off a ship by American longshore workers. Also, as a consumer, the car appealed to me because it was inexpensive, got good gas mileage, and had the highest ratings from Consumer Reports.

We live in an increasingly competitive world. A recent article predicts that Airbus may be producing more jets than Boeing in another decade. Many analysts think Airbus is a more efficient manufacturer. 

It offers a family of aircraft that share the same cockpit design, so that pilots can easily shift from one model to another. Jetblue Airways, a new carrier based in New York, will fly only Airbus planes. 

"At the end of the day, we bought the product because we thought it was better", says it's chief executive. British Airways had a similar experience. Airbus officials placed a Boeing 737 nose to nose with one of their own A320's and asked British Airways executives to compare them. British airways bought the A320. (NYT. 12-1)

Washingtonians were recently startled to hear that China is now the world's biggest producer of apples. At the present time Washington sends two million boxes of apples annually to China through Hong Kong, and there is hope that this will increase as China lowers it's 30%tariffs after joining the WTO. (PI, 11-16) 

But the US faces increasing pressure to admit Chinese apple concentrate. And some analysts believe that Washington has invested too much in the rather tasteless so-called "red delicious." (NYT, 10-26)

There is an old adage that was often quoted in the US: "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." But now, it seems, if a foreigner builds a better mousetrap, we are supposed to boycott it!

As one recent indignant letter to the New York Times protested: "Workers in manufacturing are at the mercy of developing nations as they try to export their way into prosperity through the US markets." (NYT, 11-30) 

The nerve of these people, disrupting our lives like this! We should just stop trading altogether, build huge Smoot-Hawley walls, and prepare for another great depression and World War Three!

Actually, there is no way to avoid the "stormy winds" of international competition. But they are good for us. They make us stronger, better able to cope. Competition from developing countries will cause us problems, but they will hardly put us at their "mercy."

We must stop looking at these countries as it they were merely refuges for runaway shops. We can't treat them the way we would a skinflint factory owner in a neighboring town trying to undercut our "family" jobs. 

Much more is at stake. The contest is not an equal one. The poorer nations are simply not in position to offer their workers the same standard of living that we have. 

To condemn them as exploiters and refuse to buy their products is only to deepen their poverty and misery. As Brazil's minister of foreign relations declares: "Developing nations stand absurdly accused by new and old protectionists alike, of taking advantage of the doubtful benefit of being poor." (PI. 12-7)

It is interesting to note that President Clinton, while he was visiting at Pier 5 here in Seattle, was instrumental in bringing about the uprising of the poorer nations which marked the climax of the WTO meeting. 

"What had really galvanized the developing countries' rebellion", writes Celia Dugger. was "Clinton's remark about an eventual use of trade sanctions against nations that failed to comply with international labor standards."

A week later India's commerce and industry minister denounced "what he called a pernicious attempt by the richest, most powerful nations-led by President Clinton- to rob developing countries of their great advantage in trade: cheap labor." (NYT, 12-17) API reporter, who interviewed delegates from the rebelling countries, summarizes their unease: 

"The US will want unrealistically short time schedules for eliminating practices like child labor, which have deep societal causes and whose abolition would have immediate side effects not always beneficial to the poor." (PI, 11-28) 

Former head of the UN Boutros-Ghali was moved to remark: "Why all of a sudden, when third world labor has proved to be competitive, why do industrial countries start feeling concerned about our workers'?...lt. is suspicious." (NYT, 12-3)

Clinton's remarks are said to have "electrified envoys from developing countries" to the presence of a clear and present danger. He was viewed as enunciating "protectionism in the guise of idealism, motivated by the desire to woo labor union support." In India, even labor unions who "regularly battle employers for higher wages" are vehemently opposed to Clinton's stance. 

DL. Sachdev, who is the secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress. which represents 2.5 million workers, while admitting that it was "peculiar to stand on the same side as employers and the government", had to admit that he and other union leaders in India feared that the US was angling to find a way to prevent competition from the poorer nations. (NYT. 12-17)

Now his certainly true that the NATION asserts that the AFL-CIO "collected endorsements for its [anti-WTO] demands from more than 100 labor federations around the world, including struggling independent union movements in the poorest places." (12-27) But one wonders: Were these movements "struggling" because they failed to win majority support? 

Again, in a paper distributed by anti-WTO protesters. we are told of the plight of a maquiladora worker who works 70 hours a week (almost as much as some double-backing longshore workers!) for very low wages and "with 17 people in a space that is about one and a half yards wide." (WORLD TRADE OBSERVER, 12-2, P.6) (These have got to be some super-thin individuals!)

But it must be asked: Do the workers in Mexico as a whole (and especially those who are at a bit of a distance from the border) subscribe to this anti-WTO rhetoric?

Delegates to the WTO meeting from developing countries reminded us that in the US 100 years ago there were very harsh working conditions. This does not mean that the poorer countries will have to suffer as severely (in an age when more advanced parts of the world have set an example and are offering encouragement) nor anywhere near as long as US workers did. But such a comparison puts the problem in perspective.

Now it is well known that in recent years the strength of the labor unions in the US has been declining. Thus the anti-WTO protests introduced a new wrinkle, what one quipster termed the "greenie-Sweeney" alliance, a united front of labor unions and environmentalists. One ex-sixties radical opined that such a merger "has a future." (NYT. 12-6)

But if we look at the arguments advanced in support of opposing the WTO for environmental reasons, we can only be underwhelmed. There are three cases which are mentioned again and again.

(1) As a full-page ad in the New York Times proclaimed, the WTO "declared environmental regulations illegal that require imported shrimp be caught by methods that minimize harm to endangered sea turtles." (12-26) 

But this is a blatant distortion of what actually took place. The US requires domestic shrimp-netters to use "turtle excluder devices" which allow sea turtles to escape through a trap door when caught in a shrimp net. But when it addressed the question of importing foreign shrimp, the US proclaimed a double standard. 

While it gave Asian countries only four months to comply with the law, it allowed Caribbean nations three whole years. (PI, 11-23) Moreover, the US offered to assist these Caribbean nations in learning how to use these trap-door nets. (PI, 11-29) Not unexpectedly. India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Thailand filed a complaint with the WTO that this was not fair. And a WTO tribunal agreed with them.

(2) In the words of one anti-WTO author, Michael Parenti, the WTO, in 1996, made a judgment in favor of Venezuela "overturning a section of the US Clean Air Act that prohibited the import of contaminated gasoline." (AMERICA BESIEGED,90) But this way of putting it is very misleading. The Environmental Protection Agency sets different standards of cleanliness for different refineries in the US. 

But it demanded that all foreign refineries had to meet or exceed the average level of cleanliness of US refineries. Thus, imported gasoline would have to be cleaner than that supplied by half of the refineries in the US. Was it fair. Venezuela argued, that gasoline from refinery X in the US was given the seal of approval, while gasoline from Venezuela, which was equally clean, was turned away? (P1, 11-24) 

By ruling in favor of Venezuela in this case, the WTO was not telling the US it could not set stringent environmental standards. It was merely demanding of the US that. whatever the standards (and this was up to the US to decide) they should be applied across the board to domestic and foreign refineries alike. They should not be used as a "pretext for discriminating against foreign goods." (NYT. 11-28)

(3) Another case that is repeatedly cited is the WTO ruling that Europe had no valid grounds for excluding American beef. "If European consumers and governments are opposed to the use of artificial hormones and are concerned about potential health risks or want to promote more natural farming methods, they should have the right to enact laws that support their choices", declares the anti WTO pamphlet. 

A CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO THE WTO. Very well. But if a scare campaign with no scientific basis is used to discriminate against American beef, is this not a violation of WTO standards which all member-countries agreed to follow when they joined the WTO? Is the beef consumed by Americans really dangerous to eat because it is 'unnatural?"

The huge uproar against so-called "Frankinfoods" seems unjustified. Critics asking "what-if" questions speculate about engineered genes escaping into the wild and causing unstoppable killer weeds and insects. 

But how likely are these science-fiction monsters? Plant researcher Dr. Charles Arntzen compares the risk posed by genetically-engineered crops to the danger of getting hit by an asteroid. (NYT, 11-3-99) 

And this very minimal risk must be weighed against the potential benefits of such crops. Rice that has been genetically-modified to improve the supply of iron and vitamin A could reduce infant mortality in the poorer countries. 

As a result of planting cotton that has been engineered to code for a bacterium harmful to the European corn-borer, cotton farmers in the US used millions fewer pounds of insecticides last year, which is surely a boon to the environment. (SEA. TIMES, 11-26). 

Dr. James Cook, an expert on wheat and root disease at WSU, wants to insert a fungus-fighting gene in wheat and barley to combat root rot. The methods presently used, tilling the soil and fumigating it, causes soil erosion and chemical run-off. What could be more destructive of the environment? Opponents of genetic engineering, says Cook, are either "naive or dishonest." (PI. 11-23)

Some of the full-page newspaper ads appearing in the New York Times urging people to come to Seattle and protest against the WTO took a stand against any form of trade whatsoever and suggested a return to a simpler life of the era before the combustion engine.

The people of any nation, we are told, are "most secure" when they produce their own food. When we eat food from overseas we waste energy and pollute the ocean. "Every mile the food travels causes environmental havoc." (NYT, 11-22)

It certainly is odd, to say the least, for longshoremen to be marching together with these impractical "greenies" who would like to do away with container ships!

There is a much better solution for improving the environment than poking sticks into the wheels of progress. By raising the income of the poorer nations we will enable them to devote more resources to protecting the environment. And trade is a vital part of this process.

It seems that nether a concern for labor nor the environment justifies an all-out attack on the WTO. The attempt to inject these concerns into the WTO debate is seen by the third world as a Trojan horse scheme to advance US protectionism. (NYT. 11-28) 

Furthermore, one recent case, which was in the news just prior to the WTO conference in Seattle. makes a mockery of the claim that the WTO always takes the side of large corporations against the people. 

A WTO-panel has ruled that a tax dodge used by US companies with large sales abroad is an illegal export subsidy. This is how it works. Under US tax law, a subsidiary of a US company, established outside the US to handle foreign sales, becomes exempt from US taxes on those sales.

Now if the subsidiary is set up in a tax haven like the Virgin Islands, the subsidiary (and its parent company for which it is fronting) practically escapes taxes altogether. The law actually encourages the formation of such subsidiaries. 

Boeing. Microsoft, General Motors--they all use this dodge. Boeing alone saves $100 million a year in this fashion. Estimates of the total value of this tax break for all US corporations place it at upwards of two billion dollars a year. To competitors of the US, this savings is naturally seen as giving an unfair advantage to US products. The WTO panel agreed. 

As an official of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) ruefully complained: "They ruled against us on all counts." Of course the big boys are not taking this defeat lying down. They are appealing the decision. But however it is finally resolved, this case shows that the WTO is far from being a corporate superstate, as its vehement opponents are charging. (P1: 9-7, 11-22. 11-26)

I come now to the question of China. China's accession to the WTO is seen as a bad thing by the anti-WTO protesters. The head of the AFL-CIO calls the recent agreement of the US Government to support China's admission a "grave mistake." (NYT. 11-16) 

He tells a Seattle reporter that China "can't provide basic rights for workers." He speaks of "forced labor" in China and the lack of a "right to assemble and organize." "Refuse them admission to the WTO", he says: "If they want admission badly enough, they'll improve conditions for their workers." (Seattle 11-26) 

At the anti-WTO labor rally here in Seattle, an opponent of the Chinese government is brought to the podium and applauded. And teamster head Hoffa declares that admitting China to the WTO is a "slap in the face not only to workers in America but to their counterparts in China." (NYT. 11-17)

Ought we in the ILWU to follow the lead of these top union officials? There was a time when the ILWU went its separate way from much of the rest of organized labor because right-wing labor leaders in the AFL were opposed to progressive causes. I suggest we may have to follow that independent road once again, and become true to our roots!

I think the ILWU ought to break ranks with the likes of Steve Forbes, who compares China to Germany and Japan on the eve of World War Two, calls for tough sanctions against it, and wants closer ties with Taiwan. (NYT, 11-13) 

We ought to make a clear distinction between us and California representative Dana Rohrabacher, who attacks what he calls "putting our stamp of approval on having a gangster regime coming into yet another international body." (NYT, 11-16)

The fact is that China is being completely misrepresented here in the US and the ILWU, which is more and more involved in trade with China, ought to have a proper understanding of what it all means. We have a difficult lob to do and we do it well. We unload ships and sort cargo with great efficiency. 

But as Forbes and Company would have it, as we become more involved with China, all our efficiency is for naught, because we are only helping to build up a government of thugs who will eventually attack us. Is Forbes right? 

If he is. we ought to know it. And if he is not right, if instead our increasing trade with China is helping to make a more peaceful and prosperous world, and that instead of being ashamed of ourselves, maybe we could even lake a bit of pride in what we are doing, then we ought to know that as well!

The other day there was a first here on the waterfront. Two different shipping lines from China were in port at the very same time. As I watched the big Cosco vessel, gleaming and shiny, glide slowly past the China Shipping Lines ship from my vantage point at Pier 46. 

I thought about how far we have come since that day many years ago when the very first ship from China came into our port at Pier 90. 

Though I didn't have a lob that day. I had gone to Pier 90 and was sitting quietly inside an automobile (one of many hundreds which had been discharged a day or two previously) as the ship approached. 

It was an occasion I didn't want to miss, and I had no hostile intentions. But my mission was misinterpreted by police, who thought I was "hiding" in the car. I was hauled out, spread-eagled, and frisked. 

Police suspicions were further aroused by a stack of leaflets I had intended to pass out with the title "It's Not Just Pig Bristles." The reference was to a common item of Chinese export in those days, and a suggestion that China trade would soon be much more than that. 

But to the police the word "pig" had unfortunate associations. Remember that at this time the Black Panthers were chanting "No more pigs in our community!" Although I was not arrested, the police kept a close eye on me, and when everyone else went aboard for cookies and tea, I was not allowed to go up the gangway.

Because I am so enthusiastic about China and because China has such a bad press here in the US, one's first impression might be that I have been seduced, brainwashed, or whatever. It is true that I have been reading Beijing Review every week for over 30 years. 

But as a former philosophy student and fan of John Stuart Mill, I have been inculcated with the idea that in order to really have confidence in the truth of any assertion you have to see what can be said against it. Ultimately the test of truth is experience. 

But the experience of one person is limited. Therefore we have to read books, so we can learn about the experiences of others. Many people have visited China or have lived there. Many books have been written about it. 

If they are in English I try to read them all. I have hundreds of books about China, most of which I have read, and I have read hundreds more from libraries. I especially make an effort to read all books by people with a bias against China, and these days, that includes a large majority of them. Is it presumptuous of me to think that all of this effort is not a complete waste and that glimmers of truth have started to emerge?

The anti-China rhetoric of the anti-WTO protesters contains some glaring errors. The director of the international department of the AFL-CIO recently declared about China: "It's not only that they can't have unions but attempts to form unions will put them in prison and sometimes put them before an execution squad." (NYT, 11-17) 

As a matter of fact, it is the law in China that all enterprises should allow trade unions. In the big state-owned enterprises, workers have a degree of power which would be the envy of most workers here in the US. 

They meet and pass judgment on the overall goals of their enterprises as well as daily work practices. Though it may be a cut above even the glorious tradition of our own ILWU. it is certainly a system which we. with our democratic meetings and joint control with management of vital aspects of our work environment, would find quite congenial and appropriate. 

Don St. Pierre, the president of Beijing Jeep, once complained about how difficult it was in China because he was not accustomed to spending so much time in persuading his workers. "In the Us the words of the boss are orders", he said. "There is nothing for the worker to say." (Stross, BULLS IN THE CHINA SHOP, 1990)

True, for awhile, China had trouble with enterprises which would not permit unions. These were not native enterprises but companies set up by foreigners. At the end of 1994, there were 100,000 foreign enterprises in China, and only 10% had unions. Local governments in China, in their eagerness for foreign investment, had allowed these companies to get away with this practice. 

After a disastrous fire in a foreign-owned toy factory in Shenzhen in 1993. officials attributed safety violations and long working hours to the absence of unions. By 1994 99.8% of the foreign enterprises in Shenzhen were unionized, and all enterprises in the rest of China were ordered to become unionized "within a fixed time." 

(BR, May 15, 1995) US companies which do not have unions here in the states will not be able to escape them in China, and I think this is something the ILWU should support.

As for protecting the environment, China admits it has a massive problem. Water and air pollution have reached endemic proportions. But keeping China out of the WTO and at arm's length from the US is not the solution. 

China has put the question of the environment firmly on its agenda. Conservation is being given top priority. In the wake of severe floods last year, the government immediately halted all logging in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. 

All new construction projects must comply with environmental protection requirements. In Jiangsu Province, which recently hosted a summit conference on protecting the environment, 1400 heavy polluters were ordered to cease production or close up shop, and 5.2% of the province has been set aside in 20 nature preserves. All over China people are being educated as to the importance of protecting the environment. (BR, 10-25)

In Guizhou Province, where a lake had been drained for farmland during the Cultural Revolution, resulting in insect plagues, a drop in the water table, dust storms and floods. Chinese scientists concluded that the lake should be restored. Now this has been done. Backyard zinc smelters have been closed down, the lake and its surrounding watershed have been declared a national reserve, and rare black-necked cranes can be seen in the marshes. 

A US reporter recently visited the area, and one would think it would have aroused his enthusiasm for China's strides in protecting the environment. But in accordance with the standard operating procedure of US reporterdom, which refuses to say anything about China if it can't be given a negative slant, the title of the article is: "Habitat Nearly Full Leaves People's Lives Empty." 

The reporter concentrates on interviewing people who are unhappy about the lake reserve. "Everyone here would be happy if they would drain the lake", says one man. 

"Our life here was best when they dried it up", says another. (NYT, 5-18) Yes. everything in China is terrible and everything the government does is wrong, as we learn from our daily paper each morning!

The US is a pioneer in many areas of environmental research and development. It also has a trade deficit with China. China's appetite for technology to clean up its air and water is about to skyrocket. 

As China's premier Zhu Rongji recently suggested to vice-president Gore, the US could rapidly turn its deficit into a surplus by supplying China with this much-needed equipment. (NYT, 4-10-99)

Of course there will be many other trade opportunities when China joins the WTO. China has agreed to lift a 30-year ban on importing wheat from the Pacific Northwest. 

Tariffs on a variety of farm products will be lowered from the present 45% to 10-12% by 2004. (WSJ, 4-9) Tariffs on automobiles will be reduced from the present 80-100% to 25% by 2006. (NYT, 11-16) Though it is still concerned about fruit flies, China has promised to buy citrus from California. (PI, 10-18)

There will be many benefits from increased trade. There will also be a certain modicum of pain. There are some US industries that will suffer. By 2005 the US is supposed to phase out tariffs on Chinese textiles, and this will bring hard times to North Carolina. But the overall effects, for consumers, for economic health, for the creation of new markets and new products, is heavy on the bonus side.

China too will have its pockets of disruption as a result of its lowered tariffs. For example, it expects that a number of backward auto parts enterprises will go belly up. (BR, 11-29) All over China the increased need for efficiency is causing lay-off s. Even in the textile industry, which eventually should boom, the immediate problem is too many spindles, too much production and not enough sales. 

China's state-owned industries are undergoing intensive reforms. At the #2 textile mill in Beijing, 3,000 workers have been laid off since the early 90's. Two elderly workers who expected to be laid off spoke of their worries to a US reporter. 

"Still, and perhaps remarkably", the reporter found, "both of the men seemed to offer sincere and unqualified support for Chinese membership" in the WTO. One of them said Without more global competition, China will be hopeless." (NYT, 11-18-99) 

We should take a lesson from these two old men in China. Global competition is good. If it is allowed to flourish, the world will eventually evolve into a world community where each nation contributes according to its strengths, where each nation learns from all others, and where world war is relegated to the "dust bin of history."

I once had a job as a pinsetter in a bowling alley. Then automation set in. I could see it advancing across the room, one alley at a time. I had attained a pretty high level of skill by that time. 

I could actually beat the machine by a few seconds. But had to be paid ten cents a string, and if something happened to me, a newcomer would have to be trained. The machines made more economic sense. 

The initial investment was high, but in the long run they would be more profitable. And a rather dangerous job- what with flying pins and the occasional idiot who rolls an extra ball- would become history. 

Finally I was the only pinboy left and there were 16 or 17 machines. The handwriting was on the wall. I had two alleys. The practice was to sit in the middle, and while they were bowling in one alley, you would set up pins in the other. I was replaced, not by one machine, but by two!

It was the genius of Harry Bridges to see that the ILWU should not fight progress, and that the M&M agreement would allow new technology while preserving the livelihood of the existing work force. 

This is the same problem faced by both China and the US as they face the future in the WTO. We have to find a solution which leads to the most efficient world economy without producing worker misery. 

China is working on introducing a new social security system to aid those thrown out of work. What the US needs is a well-funded program to help communities and workers who are adversely effected by free trade. They need an M&M agreement on a nationwide scale!

It has been nearly thirty years since I last visited China. That was in 1973, one year after Nixon. I am overdue for a return visit and am determined to take one by 2003 at the latest. It would be nice to go with an ILWU delegation which would certainly visit the waterfront among other places.

China, it seems, is misunderstood by all parts of the American spectrum. The left thinks China has sold out. The right thinks his a menace. The middle thinks his just plain bad, because that's all they hear. 

To the right I would say. Taiwan is part of China. There was a civil war and Chiang Kai-shek lost. He fled to Taiwan. where he was protected by the US 7th Fleet. China has never forgotten. 

No more would the US have forgotten if, after the end of our civil war, the Confederacy had fled to Long Island, and was defended there by a powerful foreign enemy. 

China's intention to regain control of Taiwan is perfectly understandable and is not a threat to any other country or the peace of the world. (I could say a great deal about Tibet as well, but want to keep this paper to a manageable length.)

To the left I would remind my ex-compatriots who marched and protested with me against the Vietnam war that it was Lenin, after all, who invited the capitalists to come into Russia and help develop the Soviet Union. 

It was not his fault that the capitalists decided instead to try to wipe out this experiment in socialism while it was still in its cradle, and sent white armies into Russia.

Today the mantle of Lenin has fallen on China's shoulders. It is the capitalists themselves who are scrambling all over themselves to get into China and get a piece of the action. And capitalists, as WTO protesters are aware, are immoral. 

They only care about the bottom line. But isn't it much nicer, after all. for capitalists to make a bit of profit in China while they help to develop that country and pull it out of poverty? 

Isn't it much more congenial of Boeing to help China build domestic airliners than to build missles designed to wipe it out? Admittedly those oversize containers are awkward to handle, but at least they won't blow up on you, like the munitions that killed many black longshoremen in World War Two.

That China has not gone capitalist is proven by the outrage the US continually expresses over the fact that China refuses to do away with its state-owned industries and instead insists on reforming them. Imagine that! 

It is so dense that it actually believes Marx and Lenin and Mao have relevance in today's world! Yes, brothers and sisters, China is so naive that it continues to perform as if it were still trying to prove in peaceful competition that socialism is superior to capitalism, just as Lenin intended to do.

China's socialist stance is extremely irritating to the die-hard anti-communists who want its present government to go out of existence. They were full of glee in 1989 when it seemed that China's leaders could never gain control over the mounting demonstrations in Beijing and would have to surrender power like Marcos. 

They exulted in the fact that China had never faced demonstrations on such a scale and lacked sufficient tear gas and riot shields to cope with them. They were happy that China, because of a divided leadership. 

Had not taken action earlier as it should have done before the protests got out of control. They ignored the point that no country on earth would have tolerated the continuance of such protests. And when deaths inevitably occurred, they rubbed China's face in it, vastly exaggerating the numbers that died. And ever since they have capitalized on the incident to make China look very very bad.

There are some principles which China refuses to surrender. It acknowledges that the economy cannot be run from on high and that the market is necessary. But it insists on maintaining overall control. 

And it continues to maintain its drive to eliminate all pockets of poverty. Those pockets which remain are the most difficult ones to eradicate, people living isolated in mountainous terrain. But China persists in the effort, devoting enormous resources to the problem.

We also have a problem of poverty in the US. We have a problem of a vast disparity in wealth. But we cannot blame this on WTO and China. This is our own internal problem.

Now we can follow Steve Forbes and boycott China. We can try to stiff the poor nations in the WTO. But there is really no future in it. The development of the world will go on without us and the only difference will be that we will be excluded from it and handicapped by our failure to join in at an earlier time. The wheels are turning. 

Macao has just been returned to China. In Macao, Chinese and Portuguese are both official languages. Brazil, which is the largest Portuguese- speaking country in the world, and with its enormous resources and potential for development, mirrors in Latin America the position of China in Asia, will soon help China develop Macao into a Portuguese-speaking Hong Kong. (BR, 12-6) China is extending its hand in friendship. We can refuse to shake it, as Dulles did to Zhou Enlai at Geneva in 1954. 

Or we can gratefully grasp this hand which, considering how China has been treated by the US in the past, could understandably have never been offered, and we can lead the world into a peaceful millennium. The choice is ours.

The fact is that the development of the third world is integrally related to the continued development of our own economy. If the third world does not develop we will have no one to trade with and the whole world will regress. But even if we stick our head in the sand and refuse to co-operate, the process has gone too far to be stopped. The genie is out of the bottle.

I would like to close by making an analogy which union members can understand. China is continually pilloried because of its circumscribing of the rights of what are termed its "dissidents." But consider China's history. 

The new China is the product of a successful revolution, a revolution against foreign aggression and native exploiters alike. In its new birth it is an organization some what similar to the ILWU, born in a baptism of fire.

The so-called "dissidents" in China are those who oppose the revolution itself. They should be seen as analogous to members of the ILWU who oppose the whole idea of forming a union in the first place. How would we re-act toward such people? 

We would certainly ostracize them. The bosses who want to break the union would certainly lionize them, lust like the US lionizes people like Wei Jingsheng. But Wei should not be a featured speaker at a union rally, as Wei was in Seattle.

I myself have been vigorously opposed to the position taken by the ILWU at the WTO conference. I got up at a union meeting and stated that I was having trouble working up antagonism for an organization which seemed similar to the United Nations. Nevertheless I joined the anti-WTO march because it was the decision of our union to take part. 

I will never break ranks with our union. I have the utmost faith in my brothers and sisters to take the proper path when the true facts are laid out for their consideration.

In the spirit of Harry Bridges, I would ask my fellow union members to choose our future course of action by daring to face the facts, using our noodles, and being unafraid to defy convention.

Dave Chaddock
Local 52
Completed January 7, 2000