L.A.LaborNews - The China Syndrome - meltdown in the movement (fwd)

Nathan Newman nathan.newman at yale.edu
Wed Apr 5 17:17:17 PDT 2000



>On Behalf Of John Gulick


> NAFTA was (and is) principally about opening up Mexican markets, labor,
> and land to U.S. capital (exporters and direct investors,
> agri-biz/industrial/ finance capital). It was (and is) neo-imperialist in
character --
> involving U.S. capital out-maneuvering its EU/E. Asian rivals...


> the PRC leadership simply
> seeks to belong to the principal _multilateral_ forum by which different
> geo-political blocs of capital cut deals w/one another.

Yes, China is a bigger market and a bigger player, but both NAFTA and the China WTO deal are both about the US corporate elite leveraging trade deals to exact market-oriented concessions from both Mexico and China. There are analytic differences but in terms of the fair trade labor-environment coalitions of the 1990s, the differences are not so qualitatively different. And definately not so different that an article can fail to even analyze the anti-China deal movement without reference to its evolution out of the NAFTA fight.

-- Nathan Newman



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