Date: 02 Feb 97 06:06:21 EST
From: Chris Burford <100423.2040-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: US-China Textile Deal


The recently announced US-China textile agreement is likely to 
get overlooked in marxism-space because there are no easy polemical
points to be made and the details of the picture are highly complex.

But in broad outline there is hardly an area of international 
trade more crucial than textiles as a barometer of the relations
between developing countries against the domination of the 
established, capitalist/imperialist countries. And if marxists
cannot begin to join Christians and other progressive campaigners
in being able to analyse what is going on, we put ourselves out of 
court.

The bare features in the BBC report this morning:

* Major trade war averted
* China's exports of textiles to USA worth over 6 billion dollars a year
* US exports to China a bit less than this, but rising
* US will concentrate now on getting fair access to China for
its own high tech textile exports.

Now what is going on apart from the happy distribution of a press
release for speedy relay to the most authoritative world news media,
the text of which it is easy to reconstruct, without even having to 
read it?

Having smashed Asian textile production in the 19th century in 
the name of free trade, advanced capitalist countries like the UK
have over the last 4-5 decades found their own textile production
severely threatened by the export to Asian countries of middle
level industrial technology able to take advantage of cheaper wage
rates and a generous supply of labour power pouring off the land
with a rising "cultural" level. The defences for the
advanced capitalist countries are to try to concentrate capital 
more intensively on labour saving high-tech methods, for example using
computer aided design for intricate pictorial patterns, or by 
restrictive trade sanctions.

Thus textiles has been one of the areas in which the advanced 
capitalist/imperialist countries have been most hypocritical and 
one sided in their promotion of "free trade". So long as they
can resist in each round of negotiation the pressure from 
developing countries to ease trade restrictions in these types of 
commodities just enough for them to continue to get a differential 
advantage from free trade in high tech products and services, then
I suspect there remains an unequal exchange of value (however carefully
defined) from the "third world" to the "first world".

Normally the developing countries bargain from a position of weakness
round after round. They cannot easily win inward flows of capital.
Some of the little tigers have found a successful formula but they
are necessarily the exception, not the rule, much as the IMF and 
World Bank would like to berate all third world countries
for not being able to compete as effectively. China, however,
(whatever ideological analysis is made of the class nature of its
present regime) enters these negotiations determined to speak from
a position of strength. It has massive reserves to buffer itself
against the short term currency speculations of the bond traders
and is clearly developing an economic strategy over the perspective 
of several decades, to bargain with the more free market capitalists
on its own terms.

The press release behind the news report today therefore 
would implicitly recognise that US capitalism/imperialism must compromise
with a growing Chinese commodity consumer market of over 1 billion
people. It's hopes are to keep ahead of the game by moving
up-market with higher technology. It therefore minimises the extent
to which it has actually been opposing free trade in textiles from
China. It emphasises in the press release its commitment to free 
trade. The particular point made about access to Chinese markets of 
high tech US textiles is symbolic. The total value will be small.
What it is symbolic of, is US capitalism/imperialisms emphasis in 
the brave new world of neo-liberal free trade, that advanced 
capitalist countries like the US will have property rights valid
world wide on high-tech and other "intellectual property". This 
will ensure its domination of the global economy in the 21st century.

The fine detail of the news item looks innocuous and confusing.
But behind this is a battle of gigantic proportions. We are leaving 
the century in which the dollar was the hegemonic world currency.
We are entering the century in which the only candidate for a world
currency of this nature actually is the renminbi, but it is a matter
of only a few more decades, unless the rules of international economic 
power can be shifted. The news item today is part of the skirmishing 
for world hegemony.

So what attitude should socialists or marxists take to it? First
of all we can stoop to analyse these manoeuvres, however sordid we
may decide to regard them. Secondly we have to face up to one of the 
most difficult marxist questions. This agreement will mean job
losses, and/or intensification of work among the poorest paid 
textile workers in the USA in the least competitive industries.

Some socialist or left democratic figures will oppose the policy
and find many reasons to do so. Is it possible, without appearing 
to endorse the neo-liberal free trade agenda of the most advanced
capitalist countries, and the transnational companies, and without
condemning the working class of the metropolitan countries as 
all labour aristocrats, to take a fundamental position of "workers of 
the world unite", which can also be a basis for intervening with
specific campaigns.

I think the answer is yes, but I am not sure how many people want 
even to ask the question.

Chris Burford
London.


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