That is reason enough to oppose China s entry into the WTO on the terms negotiated. But the obvious illogic of excluding China from the WTO on grounds of human and labor rights violations when these are not, in fact, criteria for membership, when no other country has been queried, much less excluded on these grounds, and when many of the 135 member countries of the WTO are lead by governments who are gross violators of human and labor rights themselves, simply cannot escape me. And the obscene hypocrisy of the US Congress appointing itself as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner regarding the human and labor rights violations of any other government given its own dismal record of blatant violations of human rights and international treaty obligations whenever they are deemed in conflict with US corporate or military international interests, is difficult for me to stomach. I evaluated the deal struck by the Clinton Administration and the Chinese government for China s entry into the WTO focusing on who were the winners and who were the losers in each country. High-tech and finance win, light industry loses.
High skill wins, low skill loses.
The better educated and the well established in mega cities like Shanghai will also do well. Displaced peasants and workers will suffer. Hundreds of millions of them will suffer in ways that will be hard for Westerners to even imagine. Others who are lucky enough to find work for the profitable enterprises that survive the great shake down are unlikely to enjoy rising real wages to go along with their rising productivity. I argued that the deal struck by the Clinton Administration and Chinese government serves the interests of important segments of the ruling elite in each country but sacrifices the interests of an overwhelming majority of Chinese peasants and workers to the interest of some in the old Party elite and many in the newly educated elite just as it sacrifices the interests of most Americans to the interests of powerful segments of the US business community.