China offered no official response to the protests in Seattle on Tuesday that threw the opening day of the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting into chaos. An estimated 30,000 people jammed into central Seattle in time for the ministerial meeting of the WTO, which protesters said favors corporate interests at the expense of the environment and workers. Thousands of protesters fought running battles with police, resulting in the cancellation of the meeting's opening ceremony and prompting city officials to declare a civil emergency and call in the national guard. Our efforts at transparency have not been perfect.
More work needs to be done.
But progress in this area can only be made through constructive dialogue. Among the protesters from China at the Seattle meeting was Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions Chief Executive Elisabeth Tang. Her group is demanding that an item treating possible linkages between trade and core labor standards be put on the agenda for the next round of talks. They are just rumors, but we are feeling more optimistic at this stage. Tang's group is under a lot of pressure to get the WTO to acknowledge labor prior to China's entry to the WTO, since China is the leading opponent to such a linkage.