More than a month after December's WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong, which was supposed to decide on a venue for global commerce's next biennial jamboree in 2007, no city has yet volunteered to hold it.
The baggage associated with hosting such a meeting -- organizing and providing accommodation and security for thousands of delegates, journalists and campaigners -- is daunting enough.
That's before considering the possibility of the talks collapsing or violent protests -- as happened in both Seattle and Cancun, Mexico -- costing the host city financially as well as potentially tarnishing its image, as pictures of rioters fighting police beam around the globe.
"To do the last WTO meeting, it took us 18 months of preparation and cost us an incredible amount of resources," said Hong Kong Commerce Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology John Tsang (
Traditionally, a few names are considered before the WTO general counsel announces a host city for the meeting. The last two hosts, Hong Kong and Cancun, volunteered more than two years before the event. Hong Kong said it needed at least a year's advance notice of exact dates because it is was so complicated to organize the 10,000 attendees.
The last two host cities for WTO ministerials, Hong Kong and Cancun, volunteered more than two years before the event. Hong Kong said it needed at least a year's advance notice of exact dates because it is was so complicated to organize the 10,000 attendees.
So with the next full-blown ministerial likely to be in late 2007, the clock is already ticking.
"Who would want to host something where there's such a high chance of failure?" said Philippe de Pontet, an analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington. "There's a lot of negatives."
In Hong Kong, more than 1,000 people were rounded up at the end of the meeting after an anti-globalization march turned into a riot, when hundreds of protesters broke through police lines and tried to storm the convention center where ministers were still negotiating.
A survey conducted by a Hong Kong research organization found that before the meeting, 57 percent of 500 residents asked believed the conference would benefit the territory. But afterward, that figure dropped to just 12 percent.
"Hong Kong people are not satisfied with the multi-millions of dollars being spent and the inconvenience caused, without there being a real return," said Chris Farquhar of Market Insights Group, which is based in Hong Kong.
Tsang estimated that it cost the territory more than HK$300 million (US$38.7 million) to host the event.
But WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell played down the significance of the trouble in Hong Kong, pointing out that it was less severe than at previous conferences.
"While this was nothing to sneeze at, it was certainly less than on previous occasions," Rockwell said.
The Seattle meeting in 1999 saw the worst trouble, when WTO talks collapsed following five days of anti-globalization riots that hurt the city's image and caused US$3 million in damage.
In Cancun, demonstrators battled with police and threw objects and even raw sewage in an attempt to crack a security perimeter around the meeting.
Officials say Singapore -- a WTO standby, where the commerce body had its first ministerial conference in 1996 -- could host the 2007 meeting.
While Qatar may also volunteer. Geneva remains the default location, but nothing is confirmed.
"It's true that we've had some concerns about certain meetings, mainly because of the importance of the delegations," said Geneva police spokesman Christophe Zawadzki.
He added that the city has not yet put all arrangements in place for hosting a major WTO interim conference at the end of April.
But some analysts say these major events have less chance of making significant progress in liberalizing world trade because of the complications of conducting negotiations under close scrutiny and extreme time pressures.
Major players are preferring to meet in small groups in Geneva or other locations, such as this week's gathering on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where they avoid some of the media spotlight that is focused on full ministerials.
"It is becoming increasingly difficult to make political decisions at the ministerial conference, and so the most powerful WTO members and the WTO secretariat are using other avenues to reach agreement," said Carin Smaller, a trade expert at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis-based research organization.
Tsang, meanwhile, suggested all 149 WTO members should take turns hosting ministerial conferences.
"If we do a conference every two years, if we take our turn, it will probably take us another 300 years," he said.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
RSS