Process of accession to the world trade organization

In a struggle that began in the early 1980s, many countries worked in the Uruguay Round negotiations of 1986–94 to strengthen the multilateral trading system, as well as advance the liberalization of international trade in goods, services and ideas. Governments are in the process of implementing the resulting agreements that now comprise the World Trade Organization. They are interested in extending the WTO system to “outside” economies, but not in exposing it to fresh disputes and divisions, which is why negotiations on the accession of new members are detailed, rigorous and time consuming. This is critical in accommodating the “economies in transition.”     

China,globalisation and the World Trade Organisation

This article claims that membership of the WTO will help industrialisation, rather than make China more dependent. Hedley Bull's realist paradigm helps to understand why China joined this organisation, any counter arguments are wishful thinking. Friedrich List's ideas for self-reliant industrialisation were used successfully by Mao Zedong, but globalisation has changed development strategy. Globalisation, if handled wrongly can make China jobless, voiceless, rootless, ruthless and futureless. If handled right, it can strengthen independence, sovereignty and self-reliance. The Chinese government needs stable external, as well as internal economic conditions. There are benefits for the vast majority of Chinese, but there are also possible disadvantages. David Ricardo's “comparative advantage” has not really helped Less Developed Countries, on the other hand, China should not become a crumbled “Somalia,” this means that China has to engage with globalisation, and this means also the WTO. After all, agency does exist and globalisation is a “two-edged sword.”     

Issues in the accession of China to the WTO system

China’s chief interlocutors in the negotiations on its accession to the WTO system are the United States, Japan and the European Union. But many smaller countries, developed and developing, also have a stake in the outcome. Because the Uruguay Round negotiations were conducted as a single undertaking, requiring all the participants to be parties to the resulting agreements, the smaller WTO members expect China, Taiwan and other applicants for membership to abide by the club’s rules in much the same way expected of them. This China is prepared to do as a developing country. More is expected, though, of an emerging trading power, even if it is still coping with uncertainties in its transformation into a market economy.     

How the Rise of the Rapid Support Forces Sparked Sudan's Meteoric Descent

The processes that transitioned Sudan from a deeply securitized kleptocracy into a fledgling democracy have generated stressors that are now threatening its collapse. The country's two rival generals—Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudan Armed Forces and Mohammed Hamden Dagalo (nom de guerre Hemedti) of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces—have plunged Sudan into a bloodbath. Khartoum, the capital that had been an island of civility since it was ransacked by Dervishes in 1885, has been engulfed in fierce battles since the two groups turned on each other in April 2023. Unpacking the host of factors that prompted the bloody conflict is a complex task, but the rivals and their allies are the chief culprits. Once created as a means to run counterinsurgency strategy on the cheap, the Rapid Support Forces has expanded its capacity and become a major power center. Originating in Darfur as a plunder machine of the Janjaweed militias, the group outgrew its function and became a private army capable of routing overlords in quick succession. This article traces the roots of the Rapid Support Forces to demonstrate the structural factors threatening Sudan's stability.     

China’s economic system and its accession to the WTO

In moving towards becoming a market economy, China has made dramatic strides since embarking on reforms in 1978, but liberalizations have been accompanied by inflationary booms followed by bouts of social instability. These last account for much of the caution in China’s approach to joining the World Trade Organization, which is seen as critical to securing further foreign direct investment, foreign technology and access to foreign markets—all necessary to economic growth and development. There is a reluctance to make firm commitments to abide by WTO rules on a schedule faster than that expected of developing countries. Perhaps the commitments required could be undertaken in confidence-building stages. Albert Keidel III is president, Rock Creek Research Inc., economic consultants, Bethesda, Maryland, and teaches on China’s economy in the Department of Economics, Georgetown University, Washington D.C.     

二战前中马贸易关系中的华侨因素

二战以前,马来亚的华侨不仅人口众多、经济实力雄厚,而且其经济活动遍及马来亚的生产领域和分配领域的各个方面,因而在对马来亚的社会经济发展产生重要影响的同时,也对中国与马来亚的贸易关系发展产生了巨大的影响,在沟通和增进中国与马来亚的贸易往来方面具有举足轻重的地位和不可替代的作用.     

Strategic Patience in a Turbulent World: The Obama Doctrine and its Approach to the World

The Obama administration is often criticized for not having a strategic vision. After more than six years in office, a high expectation that was widely shared around the globe seems to have nearly evaporated. Many see the “disorder” the world is facing today as partly a result of a lack of vision from the White House. You could make a case that the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) and other “violent extremism” in the Middle East and beyond, Russia's aggression in Ukraine, chaos in Syria, China's assertive moves in the East China Sea and South China Sea, and so forth, are results, direct and indirect, of a perceived vacuum created by “American withdrawal.” However, the Obama administration's understanding of the world has been surprisingly positive and constant. This paper will argue that Obama administration in fact has a core world view, based on a new self-image of the United States, and that the issue is not whether the administration lacks a vision; rather the focus should be on the vision itself and the execution of that vision.     

From Protection to Competition: The Politics of Trade Practices Reform in Australia and the Trade Practices Act 1965

The Trade Practices Act 1965 was widely criticised as being weak and unproductive. It was a significantly watered‐down version of the original Bill overseen by Garfield Barwick. Although the final form of the Act was perceived as ineffective at the time, it is now viewed as an important step towards a national competition policy and a precursor to the opening up of the Australian economy. This paper outlines the economic, political and social background to the introduction of the legislation. We specify some of the factors that explain why its creation caused controversy and its importance in initiating change in Australians' attitudes towards collusive behaviour and economic protectionism.     

Ethnicity and National Memory: The World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC) in the Context of the Palestinian National Struggle

The article examines the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC) as a community of memory, operating within the realms of Israeli national memory, endeavouring to refurbish them but dismantling them instead. A central thrust of the analysis (which refers to the period 1975-1999) concerns the anomalous relationship between nationalism and ethnicity. WOJAC's aspiration was to operate in the national arena, to counterbalance the claims of the Palestinian leadership on the right to the Land and on the refugee question. But to its chagrin the State institutions construe its activity as ethnic subversion. The fluid transition from national to ethnic interpretation reflects the contradiction that underlies Jewish nationalism and its ambivalence towards practising 'Mizrahi ethnicity'. Deriving from this contradiction, and from the praxis of construction and dismantlement that characterizes the activity of WOJAC, a contingent examination is undertaken of analytical categories such as 'national identity', 'Zionism', 'history', 'place', and 'territory' in the Middle East.     

Participation of African member states in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) multilateral trading system

Abstract

The core purpose and goals of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are to enhance growth by allowing each country to trade freely according to its comparative advantage. The other stated main objectives of the WTO are: raising standards of living; providing full employment; reduction of tariffs and non‐tariff barriers; and the elimination of discriminatory treatment. According to the current orthodox economic view, trade openness is essential for growth: countries that liberalise their imports and orientate production towards exports are assumed to have faster growth than those that do not, and the faster the rate of opening, the greater will the prospect be for development. The emphasis on trade liberalisation and export orientation in the past ten years following the adoption of the Uruguay Round has led to phenomenal growth in world merchandise trade, which has grown consistently faster than output. The orthodox view approach is today expanded and modified with the view that liberalisation measures are not sufficient by themselves and should be accompanied by other factors such as sound macroeconomic policies, good governance and a modern infrastructure. Africa's dependence on primary commodities as a source of export earnings has meant that it is vulnerable to weather conditions, market vagaries, and price volatility, arising mainly from supply shock and the secular decline in real commodity prices. The attendant terms of trade losses have exacted heavy costs in terms of incomes, indebtedness, investment, poverty and development. Therefore, the basic approach that liberalisation has a direct link to economic growth and should be undertaken as fast as possible is being questioned and has been challenged by empirical studies in recent years. The relevant studies have shown that there is a lack of relationship between the degree of trade liberalisation and the rate of growth. The emerging paradigm accepts that there are possible costs, as well as potential benefits of trade liberalisation to a particular developing country, depending on the conditions in that country, and the type of liberalisation undertaken. The other impediments and weaknesses identified as affecting effective, efficient and economical participation of African members in the WTO include rapid liberalisation as potential source of fiscal instability; general absence of peace, security and democracy; globalisation and lack of competitive ability; supply‐side constraints; high export concentration ratio; problems of implementation; exclusion and/or marginalisation from knowledge‐based economy; and lack of capacity. The Doha Development Round was initiated to attend to, and address, these problems, and it is still too early to predict the outcome. African countries need to look for African solutions to their socio‐economic and political problems, adopting transdisciplinary approaches in the context of the African Renaissance paradigm.     

The legal notion of nationality in the Turkish Republic: from Ottoman legacy to modern aberrations

Shortly after its emergence, the Turkish Republic adopted legislation inspired by European legal systems and traditions, including a law on nationality. The implementation of this law was affected by the staunchly nationalistic early republican policies which were not immune from the influence of the concept of ‘race’, as well as by the Ottoman legal conceptions on nationality based on religion, both of which guided the application of the new laws by the judiciary and the administration. This article proposes a critical legal approach to the issue of Turkish nationality, based on historical reflections. After a survey on the laws on nationality since the foundation of the Republic, it addresses the major confusions in connection with the concept of nationality in the light of textbooks from the relevant period, in order to observe, in conclusion, inherent and insolvable inconsistencies within the law, and a tenacious survival of Ottoman conceptions within the current law on nationality, especially with regard to religious minorities, which are assimilated to dhimmis in the legal subconscious and often equated to foreigners in practice.     

The Origins of World History: Arnold Toynbee before the First World War

Arnold Toynbee's ambitious work A Study of History was a phenomenal publishing success in its day, but it came under severe criticism from academic historians. In recent years, there has been something of a Toynbee revival among the proponents of the growing discipline of world history. This article suggests that Toynbee makes a somewhat unlikely founding figure for the broadly liberal and cosmopolitan world history movement, and investigates the very particular origins of Toynbee's vision of world history in the intellectual world of the pre-1914 British Empire, and especially in Toynbee's education at Winchester and Oxford.     

Limits to Hegemonic Influence in the Organization of American States

Although powerful states have the ability to dominate the international system to achieve their policy preferences, such dominance has limits in the Organization of American States. Even though the United States, its most powerful member state, has considerable influence over OAS actions, institutional factors also affect decisionmaking and produce more varied outcomes than one might anticipate. Adapting three different perspectives from organizational sociology, this study constructs an analytical framework to explore the impact of structural, normative, internal relational, and environmental factors on the level of U.S. influence in the OAS. Four hypotheses are tested on 30 cases of regional conflict management from 1948 to 2002. The organizational variables also reveal incentives for the United States to act multilaterally rather than unilaterally in most instances in the post-Cold War era.     

上海合作组织的未来发展

从某种意义上说,经过几年的发展上海合作组织在复杂的国际环境中已经逐步立稳了根基并且取得了一定的成果。就组织建设和理念构筑而言,下一步的主要任务之一就是在初创阶段业已形成的基础之上继续深化各成员国在政治、安全、经济、人文等领域的互利合作,制定并实施有关的合作规划和具体措施。与此相关,一个相当关键的问题就是如何在组织的合作理念、发展目标模式和功能定位等方面合理地实现组织的自身整合。