Japan
Hau Oli Makahiki Ho!
Reply
Monthly Archives: December 2009
Culture Wars?
That's a No-No, Beijing!
China regrets the decision. Notice, they didn’t say that they regret having done anything naughty, they just regret the decision that went against them. In a December 21 ruling, a WTO appeals panel upheld the ruling by an earlier panel of experts that restricting imports and distribution of foreign films, TV shows and books to a handful of government-controlled companies runs counter to China’s WTO obligations. The case was brought by the United States, but cheered on by any country that exports media products to China.
I confess that I have not read all 195 pages of the ruling, though it is worth a glance to see how thorough and, frankly, even-handed a WTO panel really is. The ruling was on reasonably narrow grounds, focused on the monopoly aspects of China’s actions. Beijing tried to obfuscate by saying they have the right to control imports for moral and cultural reasons, but that was not the immediate issue, which was the artificial narrowing of choice for how to distribute media products in China. But China persists in arguing that “… cultural goods combine commercial and cultural value, and should be managed in a different way than other products.” Uh hunh. That wasn’t what the case is about. Besides, the WTO recognizes the occasional need to take action to protect public morals (that’s why most countries can control cross-border movement of pornography, however it is defined in their society). From 1947, and now incorporated in the WTO, GATT Article XX specifically allows trade restrictions “… necessary to protect public morals.” It is OK for China to censor imported media for morals, but they must do so on a non-discriminatory basis and allow open access for products that clear the censors. China hasn’t been doing that.
There is a long history in the WTO and the GATT about imports of “cultural products.” A famous battle took place in Geneva between Hollywood and France over France’s old screentime quotas, which were meant to protect the French industry under the skirts of protecting French culture. This doesn’t bode well for the future of China’s current restriction that only twenty foreign films can be imported annually, which wasn’t addressed in the current case. (Gee, does China restrict its film pirates to copying only twenty films a year? I don’t think so.) I’m anticipating that Bollywood and Hollywood will join together to force New Delhi and Washington to bring the next case.
There’s Gold in Them Thar Deeps
Coral has been used in jewelry for at least 25,000 years – and has likely been traded internationally for nearly that long. And, of course, coral jewelry is an important trade item for Hawaii, which has significant reserves of black, gold and pink coral in deep water. Hawaiian corals are harvested under fairly strict rules in accord with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). That’s not the case everywhere.
Mediterranean Red Coral: Over-Harvested
The coral jewelry trade has to be distinguished from trade in live corals for use in aquariums or other “decorative” ventures. Much of this coral is taken from shallow-water reefs with total disregard for CITES or even common-sense sustainability principles.
And trade in black, gold or pink coral jewelry needs to be distinguished from the far larger red coral trade. Red corals are the traditional corals found in Mediterranean jewelry, and is harvested at fairly shallow depths (meaning that barriers to entry are low). Much of the Med has been decimated by red coral harvesting, though many of the more legitimate companies are using more sustainable practices today. The basic issue is that red coral is very slow growing, only about a 1/4 inch of growth each year. By contrast, Hawaii’s gold coral grows more quickly at 3 inches a year, making it feasible to harvest at a sustainable rate. Gold coral is also found about 1200 feet down, a significant barrier to entry.
Though my wedding ring features Hawaiian gold coral, I have been thinking more about the trade since spotting a recent New York Times article about the coral jewelry trade. Due to the over-harvesting of red coral, the trade is very controversial and has led companies like Tiffany’s to stop selling coral jewelry. The article highlights the “Too Precious to Wear” campaign launched in 2008 by a non-profit called SeaWeb, but also features the opposing views of red coral harvesters in Italy and Hawaii’s largest jewelry company, Maui Divers. Worth a read, though it misses the point that different corals grow at different rates and that the deeper corals create natural barriers to entry into the industry. Seems to me that we need tighter controls on harvesting and trading red corals, perhaps some control on pink, and lesser controls on black and gold. But that’s simply a layman’s opinion.
Full disclosure: Maui Divers was a client many years ago.