Vietnam’s dissidents –are they absent from the American mind?

In my small voice as a blogger, I’ve been guilty of the same failing as the louder media -- I’ve been ignoring how Vietnam’s Communist Party/state apparatus has cracked down on the small but persistent pro-democracy movement in the country.

In its summer issue, Dissent magazine, published in New Yoirk, breaks the silence with an article titled “Vietnamese Dissidents: Absent from the Western Mind.” Dustin Roasa, a free lance writer based in Cambodia, describes the most recent chapter in the history of Vietnamese dissidents, which began on April 8, 2006, when a group of activists posted on-line a “Manifesto 2006 on Freedom and Democracy.”

More than 2,000 Vietnamese – lawyers, Buddhist monks, Catholic priests, ex-Party members, writers, and intellectuals from all parts of the country – signed the document. They became known as Bloc 8406, after the date it was posted.

In a visit to Vietnam in the winter of 2007, Roasa talked with several Bloc 8406 members and found their mood pessimistic. The movement was under siege and losing members to prison. It was not gaining the attention of the foreign media.

“The dissidents I know hope for foreign involvement in their cause,” Doasa writes . The hope was that media interest would pressure the Party to listen to dissidents like Nguyen Dan Que, who after 20 years in prison is under house arrest in Saigon and has refused offers of exile to the United States.

In the summer of 2008, the government quietly gave a multibillion-dollar land concession in the Central Highlands to a bauxite mining company in China, which brought in thousands of “guest workers” from China. General Vo Nguyen Gap, 98, criticized the concession. So did some bloggers. “Few issues unite Vietnamese than suspicion of their large neighbor to the North,” Doasa points out.

A new wave of repression followed. At least 60 pro-democracy activists have been arrested since last October. One was a 41-year-old lawyer and graduate of Tulane, Le Cong Dinh, who gained fame for representing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in a trade dispute with the United State (over catfish dumping) and winning it. He also took on the job of defending dissidents in court, and began blogging about the bauxite mine and other government concessions to the People’s Republic of China.

On January 30, 2010, Le Cong Dinh was sentenced to five years in prison on a charge of conducting propaganda against the state.

Roasa writes: “As more Vietnamese become aware of the pro-democracy movement through the China issue, and as the crackdown against the dissidents continue to internsify, international support for the pro-democracy cause in Vietnam is crucial now more than ever.” He concludes:

“Imagine...if Solzhenitsyn’s accounts of the gulag had fallen on deaf ears. Or if Charter 77 had never been read beyond the borders of Czechoslovia. There are Solzhenitsyns and Havels in Vietnam right now. Will anyone listen?”

On July 22 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped in Hanoi to celebrate the 15th anniversary of U.S.-Vietnam relations. In a relatively brief talk, she said: “And the United States will continue to urge Vietnam to strengthen its commitment to human rights, and give its people say over the direction of their own lives. But this is not a relationship fixed upon our differences.”

Print Page Read more!

Hooked on the Presidency

Looking over the field of men anxious to run for President at the beginning of 1976, James Reston wrote in his New York column: “Once hooked on the Presidency, it is an appetite more addictive than dope.” In “Who’s Hooked?” an op-ed piece that the Times did not print, I diagnosed the media as suffering from the very same addiction.

“Although it is true, as Reston says, that the appetite for the Presidency ‘consumes men as physical as George Wallace of Alabama and as intellectual and promising as Gene McCarthy of Minnesota,’” I wrote, “it also consumes news reporters and dominates their output.”

I marveled at the volumes written and spoken in speculation about election outcomes months before the ballots were printed. Laid end to end, those words “would reach far into outer space, and several times around Mars, where they would have about as much meaning as they have here,” I wrote.

I marveled, too, at the armies of reporters and photographers following Presidential aspirants everywhere. “Partial demobilization of this entourage need not put reporters on unemployment compensation rolls,” I wrote. “They could find productive employment writing about problems – gut problems – that concern people.”

Obviously, that 1976 critique of mine, which I found while cleaning out some old files, holds true for the media today. Why this obsession with the Presidency?

Well, it is, after all, the most powerful job in the United States and the world. Okay, but this is a democracy. The excessive focus on the President adds to that power, and it crowds out other voices.

Just listen to the claims that Presidential candidates make. “Just elect me, and I’ll solve ______[fill in the current problems].” Nonsense, of course. Thank God and the constitution, the President is not all-powerful. Yet through obsessive attention to the Presidency, the media pays little attention to the other power centers that share in national decision-making on matters small and large.

Take trade policy. It is one of the most important issues being debated by John McCain and Barrack Obama. Yet the media generally covers it only superficially, and sometimes sensationally.


Even the late Tim Russert, for all his knowledge of the political scene, was weak in bringing much enlightenment to a complex issue like trade. In fact, he was probably at his weakest in the March debate between Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama.

He introduced a series of questions on NAFTA not by quoting what Clinton or Barrack had said, but what Al Gore had said back in 1993: “If you don’t like NAFTA and what’s done, we can get out of it in six months.” He then asked: “Will the U.S. President say we are out of NAFTA in six months.”

Russert reformulated the question twice for Clinton (once because he was not satisfied with Clinton’s qualified No) and then once for Obama, to which Obama replied: “I will make sure that we renegotiate, in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about, [using] the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced….”

(For details, check my March 6 posting “The ‘Opting Out” NAFTA Distraction,” based on the actual transcript.)

Although Russert got his point “buttoned” up to his satisfaction, the hurried exchange did more to confuse than to enlighten the public on NAFTA. That’s par for the course in the media when dealing with trade issues.


Print Page Read more!

How Not to Win Bipartisan Support

President Bush objects strenuously to Senator Hillary Clinton’s support for a Congressional “time out” on deciding any more trade agreements this year. He certainly has a right to speak up in support of his trade program. But he has no right to distort Senator Clinton’s position.

He did so on March 12 in a long speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Without mentioning her name, he claimed that she supports “a timeout from trade,…a timeout from growth, a timeout from jobs, and a timeout from good results.”

Mrs. Clinton’s position is a bit less sweeping. For one thing, she knows that, even without new trade deals, trade will continue to flow. Last October she included her call for a time-out in a speech in Iowa, and she later explained her reasons in a USA Today interview. She said, in part:

“I think that on balance, trade was a net positive for America and American workers during the 20th century….We have to consider carefully, What’s the role of trade going forward? How do we best position the United States to take advantage of the global economy?’ And I don’t think we’ve had serious conversation about that.”

Bush no doubt thinks all that is already settled. But that’s not enough reason for his fear-mongering about “isolationist policies and protectionist policies” that would “stop trade, erect barriers, try to wall ourselves off from the world” – positions that nobody in Congress holds. It also wasn’t the best way to win friends and influence people on the Hill.

Yet Bush used that high-visibility event, attended by six Cabinet members, to threaten to force a vote on a trade agreement with Colombia after it returns from its Easter recess. He was technically able to do that under the power he still holds under the President’s Trade Promotion Act, which expired last July when Congress refused to extend it. Wielding that club of executive power now, however, no longer strikes cringing obeisance.


The most forceful response that I’ve seen came from Change to Win, the partnership of seven unions that broke off from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Recalling that Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world for unionists, a Change to Win press release urged Congress to reject the deal with Colombia because (as its new ad says)“Americans don’t trade with death squads.”

James P. Hoffa, head of the Teamsters and a Change to Win leader, added: “Workers need trade policies that create jobs. They don’t need more deals that destroy jobs. Voters across the country are making the point increasingly clear every time they go to the polls. America is hemorrhaging jobs because of the so-called free trade agreements. That must be stopped.”

Back to President Bush and his support for choice in the supermarket.

I couldn’t help getting a kick about one additional reason he gave for wanting Congress to hurry up and approve more free trade agreements. “We want our consumers to have choices when they walk into markets,” he said. “The more choices available, the better it is for a consumer.” But this traditional argument is somewhat outmoded.

Have you walked into a store recently to buy a product made in the United States? If so, you know how restricted your choices are. Globalization, whatever its wonders, has in too many cases narrowed our choices to goods made in China. This is especially troubling to anyone (like me) anxious to avoid buying anything from a country that is the sweatshop for the world, the home of forced labor camps, the jailer of dissidents, and the persecutors of religion.

In their 1980 book, “Free to Choose,” Milton and Rose Friedman portrayed the act of making a purchase in a store to casting a ballot in a voting booth – an essential part of economic freedom. President Bush did not use that comparison in his speech, but the Friedman point does make some sense as one way to measure the impact of trade.

Last year the United States imported a record volume of goods from China: $321,507,800,000 worth in all, according to the Commerce Department. Personally, I see it as 321,507,800,000 votes for China’s human rights policy. Yes, all too often, I voted the same way. I really tried not to, even by doing without, but usually I had no choice.


Print Page Read more!

The 'Opting Out' NAFTA Distraction

Now that the Democratic debate over NAFTA has burst into an international incident, it is instructive to read how relentlessly NBC Moderator Tim Russert pressed Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama to take a position on “opting out” of NAFTA.

Neither Clinton nor Obama brought up the “opting out” idea. It was Russert who introduced it by quoting this statement that he said Al Gore made to Ross Perot in their 1993 debate: “If you don’t like NAFTA and what’s done, we can get out of it in six months.” Then, given that both candidates had sharply criticized NAFTA in the Ohio campaign, Russert asked: “Will the [next] U.S. President say we are out of NAFTA in six months?”

Senator Clinton quickly responded: “I have said that I will renegotiate NAFTA, so obviously, you’d have to say to Canada and Mexico that that’s what we’re going to do. But you know, in fairness – “

Russert pressed on, in different words: “You will get out? You will notify Mexico and Canada, NAFTA is gone in six months?”

Clinton: “No, I will say we will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiate it, and we renegotiate on terms that are favorable to all of America.” She later repeated the same point while renewing her criticism of the absence of labor and environment in NAFTA’s core agreement.

Russert wouldn’t let go. “But let me button this up. Absent the change you’re suggesting, you are willing to opt out of NAFTA in six months?”

Clinton: "I'm confident that as president, when I say we will opt out unless we renegotiate, we will renegotiate."

Then Russert turned to Obama, and after mentioning an AP story about Obama’s supposed ambivalence toward NAFTA, asked: “Simple question: Will you, as president, say to Canada and Mexico, ‘This has not worked for us; we are out?’”

Obama: “I will make sure that we renegotiate, in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about. And I think actually, Senator Clinton’s answer on this one is right. I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced. And that is not what has been happening so far.”

So Tim Russert had his point buttoned up to his satisfaction. But were Obama and Clinton really serious?

Gripped with the same question, diplomats at the Canadian consulate in Chicago thought they would get a candid answer about Obama from someone right there at the University of Chicago: Austan D. Goolsbee, professor of economics and also an advisor to the Obama campaign.

Goolsbee obligingly accepted the invitation to brief the consulate on Obama’s views. Like good diplomats, the Canadian officers took notes, wrote a report, and sent the report to Ottawa. Somehow, it leaked, and its message hit the fan: it soft-pedaled Obama’s tough talk on the campaign trail, specifically claiming that his language was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.”

At first, Obama denied that the meeting had taken place (Goolsbee did not report it to the campaign, in the naive belief that he was acting only in his role as a professor). But after the Canadian memo made headlines in Canada and the United States, an Obama spokesperson insisted that Obama’s public position on NAFTA is also his private position. Hillary Clinton insisted he was hypocritical and untrustworthy. And by Wednesday this week Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper himself, spoke up publicly, saying that the consulate report was “blatantly unfair” to Obama and his campaign.

That doesn’t end the debate over NAFTA, and shouldn’t. Both Clinton and Obama need intensive briefings to be able to explain their fair trade positions more convincingly.

Especially unimpressive, in my view, was how they both buckled under Tim Russert’s pressure, and embraced the tactic of Presidential wielding the “opting out” threat to quickstart negotiations. That’s a dumb way for a government to deal with neighboring governments, so dumb that it doesn’t happen in real life, much as it may be favored by pundits and reporters keen about “gotcha” questions based on fanciful scenarios.

Final point. Obviously, Clinton and Obama are far from isolationists, opposed to trade. They know that the economic and other interests of the three nations are such that, with or without a renegotiated NAFTA, the United States, Canada, and Mexico absolutely need some kind of a formal trade agreement among them and that the dispute is only about its contents. This fact is so obvious, I guess, that nobody at the Cleveland debate thought to mention it.

Print Page Read more!

Economics Prof Instructs NY Times

The editorial writers of the New York Times should arrange to take a refresher course on trade from Dani Rodrik, economics professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School. In the meantime, they can make do with a stern lecture from Rodrik about the flaws in a December 23 Times editorial titled "Trade and Prosperity."

"With most polls showing that voters believe trade with other countries is hurting the American economy, there has been a lot of posturing about the perils of trade on the campaign trail," the Times wrote. It then went on to express concern that Senator Hillary Clinton, rather than posturing, might actually be serious about a "time-out" to review all trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, her husband's prize trade package.

Newspaper Quick To Level 'Protectionist' Charge

Rodrik, author of the new book, "One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth" (Princeton), titles his December 23 blog entry "The NYT doesn't get it on trade." Here are the five points he finds wrong with the Times argument:

1. It automatically equates any desire to reconsider trade agreements and take a breather on new agreements as "protectionist."

2. It fails to recognize the ways in which technology and globalization interact to contribute to unequalizing trends in incomes, taking refuge in the defensive statement that "There is scant evidence that trade has played a big role in holding down typical workers’ wages."

3. It follows up this statement with "There is abundant evidence that it has contributed substantially to America’s overall economic growth," ignoring what every student of trade learns, which is that large gains from trade are possible only if there are also large amounts of income redistribution.

4. In portraying the conflict as purely one over incomes, it overlooks what is the greatest strain in the present regime of globalization -- namely, the incompatibility between the scope of markets (straining to become global) and the scope of regulatory institutions (still national).

5. And as a consequence, rather than accept the need to rethink the existing rules of the game, the editorial takes refuge in the same stale recommendations that every trade liberalizer has been offering for the last quarter century at least -- more safety nets, better training, and more progressive income taxation.
Rodrik adds that those ideas about the need for improving social insurance, while not new, need to be revitalized, as he himself urged in his 1997 book, "Has Globalization Gone Too Far?" (Institute for International Economics), and then continues on his blog.

But it is also time to recognize that the WTO rules need to become much more flexible to provide a better balance between international trade and domestic regulatory and other policy priorities -- in other words, to assure domestic electorates that their values and preferences are not being sacrificed to the demands of some globalization agenda constructed, in any case, by a narrow elite.

Rodrik posted the above entry. December 23, with two links referring to previous blog entries.
Read more!