In The News

Superpower Dream Behind China's Heavy Industry Push

Guo Shiping November 19, 2003
Beijing's recent decision to invest in the development of heavy industries in northeastern China is not only an economically strategic move, says Chinese economist Guo Shiping. While heavy industry is a necessary backbone to long-term growth, Guo says, the shift away from a single-minded focus on light industry and service sectors will also better prepare China for true superpower status....

Bilateral Pacts Also Goal for US

Jane Bussey November 19, 2003
Six Latin and South American countries – the Dominican Republic, Panama, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – may enter bi-lateral trade agreements with the United States within the year, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick announced on Tuesday at the FTAA summit in Miami. This is a shift in strategy away from the original demands that Brazil and other reluctant states all fall in line...

Worthy Goal

Eric Farnsworth November 18, 2003
“The negotiations over a Free Trade Area of the Americas are not ultimately about agriculture subsidies, orange juice, or even competing claims of jobs won or lost,” argues Eric Farnsworth, Vice President of the Council of the Americas. “Rather, they are about building a democratic hemisphere consistent with strategic interests.” He explains that direct foreign investment drives economic growth...

U.K. Police, Protesters Await Bush

November 18, 2003
The British are planning to welcome U.S. President Bush’s visit with protests, intense security measures, and surprisingly extensive public support. While many British are taking Bush’s trip to the UK as an opportunity to express their discontent with the war in Iraq, recent polls suggest that more Britons welcome the visit than oppose it. Moreover, a majority – some 62 percent – says it...

US Backs Down Over Free Trade in Americas

Guy de Jonquières November 17, 2003
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement will come under debate in Miami on Thursday. Each of the nations involved is working hard in the days leading up to the negotiations to push its particular vision of what the agreement should look like or whether there even should be a regional trade area in the Americas. The US has advocated a more extreme version of liberalization than what...

Europeans Need Clearer Vision to Revive WTO Talks

Shada Islam November 14, 2003
The US and the European Union helped derail negotiations at the Cancun meeting of the World Trade Organization by refusing to end subsidies to their farmers. Although European leaders talk of building a multi-polar new world order, says Shada Islam, their stand at the WTO betrays a reluctance to deal with the developing world as equals. The deal the European Union struck with Washington is...

Antiglobalism's Jewish Problem

Mark Strauss November 12, 2003
Anti-Semitism is again on the rise, says Mark Strauss, a senior editor for Foreign Policy. Globalization is being pinned on the Jews – the traditional 'villain' of capitalism – and thus the Jewish people are being blamed for all perceived negative effects of increased market integration, Strauss writes. In the Middle East especially, where economies are stagnant everywhere but Israel,...