In The News

Chinese Girls’ Toil Brings Pain, Not Riches

Joseph Kahn October 2, 2003
China’s shift to capitalism has brought huge rewards to many Chinese, but for 150 million unemployed peasants, poverty is still a harsh reality. Job prospects are limited, and a lucky few find jobs with multinational corporations, which offer good pay and high labor standards. In China’s export sector, however, sweatshops and low pay are much more common. Lured by promises of good pay, two...

Connect the Dots

Thomas Friedman September 25, 2003
The US has refused to cut agricultural subsidies to its farmers for years, and it refused again at the recent WTO meeting in Cancún. Thomas Friedman laments that fact, arguing that a real connection exists between US hypocrisy on world trade issues and the roots of anti-American terrorism. Countries like Pakistan, mired in poverty, would produce fewer angry fundamentalists willing to bomb the...

Social Capital Key to Globalization

Leonard Wang September 24, 2003
The standoff at the most recent WTO meeting in Cancún has illuminated the plight of small farmers in developing countries, who struggle to compete with subsidized farmers in the US and Europe. Leonard Wang argues that the economic hardships these farmers face are only the beginning of a larger problem. When the world's economic powers transform developing countries, communities based on...

China Joins the Global Economy - Part Two

Deborah Davis September 17, 2003
In part one of this 2-part series, David Zweig explained the processes by which China joined the global economy. In part two, China scholar Deborah Davis discusses the prospects for China's continued economic growth. While incomes have improved and everyone's boat has risen, Davis says, so has the country's once-low income inequality. Increased differences in wealth, as well as...

Rich-Poor Rift Triggers Collapse of Trade Talks

Kevin Sullivan September 15, 2003
Representatives from developing countries walked out of WTO trade talks this weekend in Cancun, claiming that the United States and European Union (EU) countries were unwilling to negotiate the reduction of agricultural subsidies. Many states from Latin America and Africa consider the $3 billion of subsidies provided by wealthier countries to their farmers to be a de facto "dumping"...

Protesters Swarm the Streets at W.T.O. Forum in Cancún

Ginger Thompson September 14, 2003
Developing nations lost the trade battle this weekend in the WTO talks, as richer countries pushed through a proposal that kept most of the 3 billion dollars worth of agricultural subsidies intact. Defending the subsidies, which nations in Africa and Latin America consider akin to "dumping practices" and which the US and EU states call necessary, wealthier nations called on groups such...

Only a Miracle Can Save China

Moisés Naím September 14, 2003
China may be growing too strong too fast for its own good. Rapid urbanization, an upwardly mobile middle class, and strained utilities and resources make an economic or political "accident" within the next decade inevitable, argues Moisés Naím. No state thus far has managed to expand so quickly in so many different directions without experiencing some sort of collapse—and China's...