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Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Mar26/32) TWN MC14 Update No. 5 Asia's Big
Three Find Common Ground at MC14, Kuala Lumper*, Goh Chien Yen - The WTO's 14th ministerial conference opened on Thursday in Yaoundé, Cameroon, with China, India and Indonesia each staking out positions on the future of global trade. All three called for a strengthened multilateral system. But beneath the shared rhetoric, divergences on the investment facilitation agreement and consensus-based decision-making point to a Global South struggling to present a united front at a moment when it can least afford division. On foundations, the three Asian economies sing broadly from the same hymn sheet. All want WTO reform to be inclusive and member-driven. All insist on preserving special and differential treatment for developing countries. All demand a restored, fully functioning dispute settlement system. India and Indonesia stress the urgency of delivering on long-pending agriculture mandates, from public stockholding for food security to protecting artisanal fishers in the second phase of fisheries subsidies negotiations. India's commerce minister Piyush Goyal put the point bluntly: reform must keep "development at its core" and uphold "non-discrimination, consensus-based decision making and equity." Indonesia's trade minister Budi Santoso struck similar notes, insisting the WTO "must remain the cornerstone of a rule-based trade system." China's trade minister Wang Wantao framed the stakes in starker terms, warning that "the international economic and trade order must never return to the law of the jungle." There are, however, fault lines. China's top priority is incorporating the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement (IFDA) into the WTO legal framework. India has long opposed the IFDA and the e-commerce moratorium. On incorporation of plurilateral outcomes Goyal said they “should be based on consensus and not impair existing rights of non-parties or cast additional obligations on them.” Indonesia sidestepped the IFDA altogether. On e-commerce, India called for "careful reconsideration" of extending the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, while Indonesia confined itself to supporting "advancing discussions." Most consequentially, China appears to be drifting from the principle of strict consensus. Wang called for "a more flexible and efficient way of decision-making," language that sits uneasily alongside India's firm insistence on consensus-based governance. One minister present described China's position on reform and flexible consensus as "hardly conducive to preserving the multilateral trading system," suggesting Beijing is more aligned with the major industrialised countries than it lets on. China did make one headline concession: it will forgo new special and differential treatment in current and future WTO negotiations, and will extend zero-tariff treatment to all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations from 1 May. In the meantime, at her inaugural press conference, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala pushed for ministers to endorse a reform agenda, arguing that nine months of preparatory work in Geneva had brought members to accept the need for change, even if they disagree on priorities. She told journalists not to "fixate on whether a work plan is attached" to any ministerial endorsement. *With inputs from TWN delegation at MC14, Yaoundé, Cameroon. This article is based on original news report, “MC14 Opens with Sharp Rifts as China, India, Indonesia Diverge on Trade Agenda,” Yaoundé, 26 March, ( D Ravi Kanth).
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