Asia cannot remain on the sidelines over trade
The Doha world trade round has all but ended, not with a bang but with a whimper. It is "between intensive care and the crematorium", as Kamal Nath, India's commerce minister, put it. US trade negotiating authority expires in less than a year and would almost certainly need to be extended to wrap up any worthwhile deal. To consent to that, a sceptical Congress would want to see a lot more goodies on the table than are there today.
The round's last debacle, in Cancún in 2003, was widely attributed to the increasing unwieldiness of the World Trade Organisation, hamstrung by a preponderance of poorer countries lacking any coherent agenda but all too ready to use their veto power. This week's failure, however, was of a more classic vintage: an impasse over agriculture, trade liberalisation's hoariest bugbear, that many blame squarely on US intransigence.
Whether or not that charge is justified, domestic constraints on US negotiating flexibility have created a leadership vacuum that no one else has been ready or able to fill. Not the European Union, torn by internal divisions between liberals and protectionists; not Japan or India, whose priority is to keep farm imports out; nor China, in spite of it's dependence on exports and its yearning for global kudos. In reality, all the biggest WTO players are culpable to a degree.
After Cancún, there were suggestions that liberal-minded WTO members should forge ahead together, extending to all the others any deals agreed. That now looks fanciful. How can there be a coalition of the willing, when the willing are so few? Equally optimistic is the idea that liberalisation would be easier to sell if marketed as a way to generate economic gains by making imports cheaper. The problem is that the gains are so thinly spread as to be almost imperceptible to most beneficiaries. Furthermore, internationally tradable goods, such as food and consumer durables, account for an ever-smaller share of household spending in rich countries, where consumers are most vocal. In the end, unless governments have the incentive and gutsto override vested interests at home, deals will not happen.
In truth, the Doha round is a victim of collective political apathy, inspired not by the failure of the global trade system, but by its success. The cumulative impact of past liberalisation continues to yield huge benefits. They have been buttressed by the resilience of the global economy. In spite of repeated shocks, protectionism remains confined to the margins; trade growth regularly outstrips world output and unilateral market-opening continues in many parts of the world.
From that perspective, failure of the Doha talks looks like just a missed opportunity. The longer-term costs, however, may be more serious. One is to accelerate the proliferation of preferential trade deals, with Asia at its centre. Most such deals do pitifully little to open markets and instead pile up regulatory barriers and costs. For a region that lives off export-led growth to handicap itself in this way is like turkeys voting for Christmas.
A still bigger danger is that the rules underpinning the multilateral system will begin to crumble. While WTO members were at least paying lip service to completing the Doha round, they had a common interest in exercising restraint in picking trade quarrels. With the talks going nowhere, there is much less reason to keep their gloves on.
The WTO's disputes settlement system is its one big success. But its effectiveness depends on sovereign members' willingness to comply with rulings. How long can any judicial system continue to do its job without the political "lock-in" provided by legislative activity in parallel?
Everyone would lose from a return to tit-for-tat trade hostilities. But no region is more vulnerable than east Asia. It generates one-third of world merchandise exports, while its lack of common regional institutions and rules makes it heavily dependent on the WTO to keep markets open.
Yet since the start of the Doha round, east Asia's bigger players have sat on the sidelines, leaving it to others to kick the ball forward. The talks' collapse makes indifference and complacency much riskier options.
The deep fault lines of mutual mistrust that divide east Asia will long prevent it taking any concerted regional initiatives in the WTO. In the foreseeable future, only the US can exercise the necessary leadership - if it chooses to. But when the time comes to start picking up the pieces from the wreckage of the Doha round, it is in Asia's own interest to be first in the queue to lend a helping hand.
贸易回合：亚洲不能只当观众
世
贸多哈回合谈判差不多结束了，没有喧哗，只有唏嘘。尽管它尚未进入临床死亡状态，但正如印度商业和工业部长卡迈勒d?纳特(Kamal Nath)所描述的，它已经“介于重症监护病房与火葬场之间”。或许可以尝试进行急救，但预后看来不妙。美国的贸易谈判授权还有不到一年就要到期，要达成任何有价值的协议，几乎肯定需要延长授权期限。而持怀疑态度的美国国会要在谈判桌上看到比如今、或比不久后多得多的好处，才会同意延期。
该回合上次谈判破裂是在2003年的坎昆，在很大程度归结于世贸组织日益加剧的运转失灵。许多穷国在世贸组织中不具备协调的议程，却随时准备动用否决权。但这次的失败却源于更为典型的问题：农业问题僵局。这是贸易自由化进程中历史最悠久的难题，很多人把它全部归咎于美国的不妥协态度。
不管这一指责是否公允，美国国内对其谈判灵活性的限制已造成领导力真空，但没有任何其它国家准备或有能力去填补这个空缺。欧盟不行，它被自由贸易主义者和贸易保护主义者的内部分歧弄得四分五裂；日本和印度不行，这两个国家的优先考虑是把农产品进口拒之门外；中国也不行，尽管它依赖出口，并渴望获得全球声望。事实上，世贸组织所有最重要的成员国在一定程度上都难辞其咎。
坎昆谈判之后，有人建议，持有自由贸易观点的世贸组织成员国应当携手向前迈进，无条件地将所有达成的协议扩展至其它全部成员国。现在看来，这是个不切实际的幻想。当愿意参与的国家如此之少时，怎么能形成一个自愿联盟(coalition of the willing)呢？同样过于乐观的一个看法是，只要诚实地“推销”贸易自由化 ―― 即它使进口产品更便宜，从而产生经济收益 ―― 它在政治上就会更易于被接受。
问题在于，这些收益虽然总体上很庞大，但分布面太广，以至于大部分受益者几乎察觉不到。此外，食品和耐用消费品等可参与国际贸易的商品，在富国家庭支出中所占的份额越来越小，而这些国家的消费者是最愿意表达意见的。有多少人愿意为了一块面包便宜一分钱而去大力抨击贸易壁垒呢？归根结底，除非各国政府有动机与勇气去制服顽抗的本国既得利益者，协议将无法达成。没有什么东西能代替政治意志。
实际上，多哈回合是各国集体表现出的政治冷漠的牺牲品，导致这种冷漠的，并非全球贸易体系的失败，而是它的非凡成功。除了中国“入世”时同意大幅度削减关税外，世贸组织在它存在的10年时间里并未降低多少贸易壁垒。但以往贸易自由化的累积影响，继续带来巨大的好处。全球经济的非凡弹性加强了这些益处。贸易保护主义尽管再三造成冲击，但仍然被限制在边缘；贸易增长常常超过世界产出增长，而在世界许多地区，单边市场开放（所有做法中最为有效的一种）仍在继续推进。
从这个角度来看，多哈回合谈判的失败，似乎仅仅是一个错失的机会而已。但从更长远来看，代价也许更加惨重。其中之一便是，它将加速特惠贸易协议的泛滥，尤其是在亚洲。多数此类协议对开放市场几乎没有帮助，相反还会增加监管壁垒和成本。对于一个依赖出口导向型经济增长的地区来说，用这种方式为自己设置障碍，就像火鸡投票赞成过圣诞节一样愚蠢。
而更大的风险在于，支持多边体系的规则将开始崩溃。世贸组织成员国对完成多哈回合至少做出了一些口头上的承诺，而且自我克制、避免挑起贸易争论符合它们的共同利益。既然谈判没有任何进展，成员国也就更加没有理由相互客气了。
世贸组织纠纷解决体系是一大成就。但其有效性完全取决于主权成员国自愿服从裁决的意愿。如果由并行的持续立法活动所提供的政治“锁定”不复存在，司法体系的正常运行能持续多久呢？也许过不了多久我们就能得出答案。
如果世界重回“以牙还牙”的贸易敌对时代，并由此产生经济不确定性，那么所有人都将成为输家。但任何地区都没有东亚更易受到冲击。该地区产生全球三分之一的商品出口，比美国和欧盟的总数还要多，但由于缺乏共同的区域机构和规则，它只能严重依赖世贸组织来维持市场的开放。
但自从多哈回合谈判开始以来，东亚各贸易大国采取了消极的观望态度，将推动谈判的工作留给了其它国家。多哈回合谈判的破裂，使得漠然和自满这两种心态更加危险，很可能比多数亚洲国家政府所认识到的更危险。
在未来很长一段时间里，无论是在世贸组织，还是在任何其它多边论坛上，分隔东亚各国 ―― 尤其是中国和日本 ―― 的互不信任，将使东亚无法采取任何协调一致的区域行动。在可预见的未来，只有美国能够展现出必要的领导力――如果它选择这样做的话。但当各国开始从多哈回合谈判的废墟中收拾残局时，首先伸出援手符合亚洲自身的利益。
