Mahathir's call to WTO makes sense

Mahathir's call to WTO makes sense

Since the Asian currency and stock market turmoil began,
resentment against the West has swept through Southeast Asia. It
is not just Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who
believes there is a Western plot to undermine the economies of
this whole region.

Now that Hong Kong has been badly hit, with Western
speculators gunning for the dollar and dumping shares, the
conspiracy theory is quickly making the rounds. Even Hang Seng
Bank chairman Sir Q.W. Lee has spoken of a possibly concerted
attack on Hong Kong's economy.

People in Hong Kong are beginning to point to what they see as
strange coincidences in the recent past throughout the region,
starting with the attack on the Thai baht, followed by a
seemingly systematic assault on country-by-country basis, ending
in a massive attack on the Hong Kong dollar and its peg to the
United States dollar.

Then came the Morgan Stanley's announcement about reducing its
Hong Kong holdings to zero, followed by Moody's Investors
Services' unusual announcement of plans to downgrade Hong Kong
banks.

All these actions may have been motivated by nothing more than
a desire to make a quick profit. After all, Western markets were
also affected.

Nonetheless, recent events show that emotions can be deeply
stirred even by happenings on the market that cannot be in
anybody's interests, either in the East or in the West. Something
needs to be done.

Dr. Mahathir, widely mocked in Hong Kong when he first pinned
the blame on American financier George Soros, may be pointing in
the right direction with his suggestion that the World Trade
Organization (WTO) study new rules, including the introduction of
regulated currency trading, to prevent a recurrence.

Hong Kong authorities, which have announced they are looking
into the local structure and some of its obvious flaws, have a
vested interest in supporting the Malaysian leader.

Just as Hong Kong's own structure requires proper safeguards,
so do those of the region. In fact, all the world's markets need
better protection and no organization is better equipped to work
this out than the WTO.

-- Hong Kong Standard