>Rakesh, do you think the Chinese working class should support or
>oppose China's WTO entry?
Doug, It seems to me that China has given up way too much in terms of financial liberalisation, iprs, termination of foreign exchange balance requirements, indiscriminate opening up of product lines to foreign invasion, foreign rights over equity, etc. in order to win the US's approval for entry into the WTO. Quite possible that from the perspective of the Chinese working class there will be more disadvantages than gains from guaranteed access to world markets. But I have no idea.
Just my impression: in terms of the particular accord that has been struck, it may do more harm than good, but being shut off from the biggest market in the world (and dollars) could be catastrophic as well. Does this mean I support the US trade union movement's prioritized demand to impose bans or tarriffs on producers in countries that can only compete on the basis of wage repression due overall higher unit labor costs from low overall productivity? I do not support this solution and the emphasis that has been given to it for reasons I have stated.
As I tried to suggest, we need to think through a perspective that neither supports nor rejects the WTO, neither militates for nor against China's entry, gets into bed with neither Moore nor Hoffa. What this perspective would be may be something we can approach through the collective intelligence of this list.
Yours, Rakesh