A Chance for Social Movements, or a Chance for Transnationals?
Byun, Jeongpil(KoA)
South Korean government announced in a sudden that it opens the negotiation on a FTA with the U.S. on 3rd Feb 2006. Despite the fact that the hearing committee on the proposed KorUS FTA was dismissed without any conclusion, the government has accelerated the negotiation process to the point of beginning the actual negotiations as if the hearing on the FTA was held.
The former USTR ambassador Rob Portman also welcomed the opening of the KorUS FTA saying that “this will be our most commercially significant free trade negotiation launched in over 15years.” This was followed by the broad support from business. It means that the KorUS FTA will give another chance to maximize transnational corporations’ profits while sacrificing peoples’ rights and livelihood just like the way the NAFTA did.
So-called Four Preliminaries
For the FTA negotiations to even begin, the South Korean government had to implement a neoliberal agenda to show its “seriousness” about the agreement to the United States. This included agreeing to the four preliminary steps. Those are “suspending regulation on pharmaceutical product prices” which means “undermining people’s rights to health”(Oct. 2005), “easing government regulation of gas emissions in imported U.S. cars” which means “undermining environmental standards”(Nov. 2005), “resuming importation of U.S. beef” which means “undermining public health and food safety”(Jan. 2006), and “reducing the compulsory South Korean film quota for cinemas from 146 days per year to 73 days” which means “undermining cultural diversity”.
This four preliminaries publicly disclosed as demands of the U.S. to open the negotiation are merely preludes to the destructive result of the proposed KorUS FTA.
Korean Draft Disclosed
Korean people and social movements are worried about the destructive result of the proposed FTA. We are keenly aware of the devastating results of NAFTA on the people of Canada, Mexico, and the United States even though the three governments had made many promises in improving the lives of the people in the three countries. The proposed the KorUS FTA is on the same track. The Korean government has been propagating that it will create more jobs and will reduce the gap between the poor and the rich just like the promises given with the NAFTA; however, what the United States government demands in the FTA is nothing less than a 100% open-door policy from South Korea.
We call the FTA as “Farmer Terror Action” because the FTA will also eliminate protection for South Korean farmers producing rice, the country’s most important agricultural product. The director of the ministry of finance and economics has promised that “Given the sensitivity of the full liberalization of the rice market and the significant impact the rice market has on South Korea, as it is directly linked to the nation’s food security and livelihood of South Korea’s farming community, we will endeavor to protect the local rice market to the end”.
However, Richard Crowder, head of agricultural negotiations at the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, stated bluntly that the FTA MUST by COMPREHENSIVE WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS. According to the statistics by the U.S. side, the agricultural production will be decreased by 45% after KorUS FTA has been agreed. It means half of Korean Farmers will lose jobs and fall into urban poor.
The KorUS FTA will give momentum to commercialize and privatize public services in South Korea as well. During the Korea-US Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) negotiations in 1998, which has been transformed to the on-going FTA, the U.S. government demanded the South Korean government to eliminate ‘all the discriminable restrictions against foreign capitals’ on the public sectors just with five exceptions. Gas is already known as a main target of the KorUS FTA. It’s ironical that the U.S. has turn to “protectionism” regarding energies after the black-out in California while it pushes the South Korean government to open and privatize public services.
It will give momentums to neoliberal adjustment program in South Korea implemented since IMF restructuring program in 1997.
Another target of the FTA would be medical pricing system for pharmaceutical businesses especially based in the United States. It would undermine the access of people to medicine. Jobs and working conditions will be threatened by the Kor-US FTA just like the way under the NAFTA. Cultural diversities will be in crisis as well. The FTA will give way to the Hollywood and big broadcasting capitals to dominate the South Korean market.
It will not serve the people’s interests but benefits of the transnational capitals’ in both countries since the FTA means merely the intensification of some form of neoliberal policies. The draft of the FTA issued by the South Korean government on May 15 is a proof of this.
According to the draft summary of the KORUS FTA proposed by the South Korean government (released on May 15th, 2006), the contents are almost same as the NAFTA. It includes ‘investor-state claims’ and ‘prohibition of performance requirements’, which pave the way for foreign investors to intervene in government policies and decisions, as well as undermining the government and people’s rights to control. While even in the first negotiation, the demand of the U.S. has been found that its demand is even stronger than expected.
An FTA as a Measure of Intensifying US Hegemony in the Ease Asia
I just want to mention one more point regarding the FTA. Korean government accepted the Strategic Flexibilities of the American Forces in January 2006. With the FTA, the military alliance between two countries will be strengthened. And this will be justifying ‘the US pre-emptive doctrine against terror.’ South Korea will play a role as an outpost for the US to secure its political and military supreme power in East Asia. We must pay attention to the fact that the US has tried to contract an FTA where the political and military meaning is significant in every continents.
A Chance for Social Movements, or a Chance for Transnationals?
However, the government’s strong drive to the KorUS FTA is giving new chance to the Korean peoples’ and social movements as well. In the context that the KorUS FTA is taking more specific form of neo-liberal globalization, it gives new possibility of anti-globalization movement to be as a just intellectuals’ and activists’ but a mass movement in South Korea. Under the name of Korean Alliance against the KorUS FTA, more than 14 joint committees (about 300 organizations) joined and have joint actions to stop the KorUS FTA in the context there is no exception under the FTA and neoliberal-globalization. Through the struggle against the FTA, these movements can share their experiences and strategies to stop the FTA and go beyond not only the FTA but the neoliberal globalization. Will the FTA be a chance for social movements or a chance for transnationals based in both countries? The Korean people and social movement have to answer.