Facing the opposition to ASEAN free trade

Facing the opposition to ASEAN free trade

By James Fahn

BANGKOK: Social issues were supposed to be one of the highlights of the fifth ASEAN summit. In their opening addresses many of the leaders remarked that it was necessary to bring social cooperation up to the level of economic and political cooperation in the Southeast Asian gathering.

Apart from the speeches, however, there was little actual discussion of how to address the social and environmental problems that have cropped up as a result of the region's development. The details of such a program are left to ongoing talks between senior officials.

In response to the trial of Filipino maid Flor Contemplacion in Singapore, Philippines President Fidel Ramos did raise some social issues concerning the rights of migrant workers. But he received little support from other leaders.

Even Thailand which has hundreds of thousands of its own citizens working abroad, is not ready to discuss the issue as it also plays host to many illegal immigrants, especially from Myanmar. In the end an ASEAN committee on transmigration was quietly established.

Most of the talks at the summit centered on how to speed up and expand the economic linkages which form one of the basic pillars of ASEAN. The social and environmental issues meanwhile were largely being "tackled" out on Charoen Krung Road.

There several hundred protesters from eight Asian countries were being held back by police as they sought to march on the summit site and hand ASEAN leaders a list of demands in the name of Southeast Asia's poor and disenfranchised workers and farmers.

The demonstrators had just arrived from Ubon Ratchathani where they had attended the Forum of the Poor. Such parallel meeting by the grass roots groups and NGO network, which make up the "People's Movement", are now a regular event whenever the high and mighty gather in Bangkok.

In this case, however, one of the protest leaders Bamrung Kayotha, the former head of the Small-Scale Farmers Federation of the Northeast -- made a simple but striking statement. "I don't believe in free trade," he said "it only helps the rich."

Bramrung commands a large following. His statement last week probably marks the first time that such a prominent Thai figure (apart from a few intellectuals) has actually come out to oppose not just the government or its policies, not just mainstream development or the World Bank, but the actual concept of free trade.

Around the world, it's not exactly a novel position. In developed countries, opposition to free trade is widespread among farmers and workers.

French farmers are famous (or infamous) for having almost single-handedly held up the talks on the Seventh Round of GATT, now known as the World Trade Organization (WTO). Labor unions in the U.S. led the opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which only squeaked through the U.S. Congress following the adoption of social and environmental "side agreements" with Mexico.

Liberals and environmentalists in the West are also uneasy with free trade. The labor, environmental and public health regulations they have fought to build up over many decades are being subverted as companies move operations to developing countries with fewer restrictions.

But so far in Southeast Asia, or at least in Thailand, there has been little or no opposition to free trade per se from the grass roots level.

Instead, the voice coming out of Asia is that of economic ministers, who rail against attempts to regulate trade as a protectionist ploy by the West. In many cases, they are just that. But some trade regulations do have noble intentions.

The U.S., for instance, has passed a law known as the Marine Mammal Protection Act in an attempt to ensure that tuna imported to the U.S. was caught with dolphin-friendly fishing techniques. But in a notorious verdict, a GATT panel of unelected bureaucrats ruled that it was an undue "restraint on trade'. The WTO has come out with similar rulings on other environmental measures.

This is a pity because many social and environmental problems are a direct result of the failure of free market forces to provide the quality of life and security that people want.

For instance, Thailand's pollution problems -- which have a disproportionate impact on the poor -- arise because under a free market companies and individuals have no incentive to clean up their mess. Waste treatment only comes about once government regulations are enforced, or there is a public protest by affected people.

Some type of intervention by the public sector in trade and markets is, therefore, necessary.

Free trade, like the free market, is in any case a myth. All government already intervene in the economy at will, usually to protect influential industries and interest groups.

To protect environmental quality, markets can be co-opted. Intervention need not come in the form of old-style "command and control" regulations. Fiscal incentives and disincentives can often do the job much more efficiently. Markets in valuable resources such as water can be set up by handing out tradable property rights. "Eco-labeling" can be established so that consumers can make informed purchasing decisions.

Protecting certain social groups, or protecting rate species and ecosystems, is much more tricky because it is often intensive development itself which causes damage.

Bamrung, for instance, wants to protect small-scale farmers. Under a global free market, they are almost certainly doomed to become extinct.

Small-scale farmers only survive in developed countries as a result of massive subsidies or protectionist barriers. These have been provided by governments both because farmers have a lot of political clout and because they represent many of the traditional values which societies cherish.

Southeast Asia is no different. The people's movement is in some ways a reactionary movement, a response to the more dynamic move toward globalization. But the march in Bangkok recently was a sign that they are overcoming a tendency to simply act locally and are now organizing across the region.

And while their march was largely ignored by ASEAN leaders, it is no surprise that one of the main disputes surrounding the ASEAN Free Trade Area is an argument over lowering tariffs for agricultural products.

In a region where the overwhelming majority of people are farmers, agricultural policy has far more social implications than a committee of officials discussing "social cooperation".

ASEAN leaders have held up the European Union as a model for Southeast Asia. It is an appropriate one. French farmers and Thai farmers look a lot alike when they're marching through the streets.

-- The Nation