Sri Lanka: HRC’s Accountability Project Resolution 46/1

 

 

Good governance tests at multiple fronts

Sri Lanka’s good governance test continued at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva over the week with the Core Group of examiners, viz., the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, as the invigilators, with Malawi, Montenegro and North Macedonia cynically thrown in as proof of broad-based concern, the clearest illustration of politicisation of the HRC.

Sri Lanka will clearly get no marks for cooperation with the HRC’s Accountability Project established by the Core Group through the High Commissioner three years ago in Resolution 46/1. Sri Lanka has repeatedly highlighted this as an initiative whose sole purpose is to cater to the aspirations of a few residing primarily overseas, viz., the Sri Lankan diaspora, who are voters in the Core Group now, and that reconciliation processes must have domestic ownership. Minus the consent of the country concerned, the value of such initiatives for peace, stability, and reconciliation in Sri Lanka is zero. The Office of the High Commission of Human Rights (OHCHR) is reduced to what amounts to no less than open threats from the podium, urging other States to invoke universal jurisdiction and ‘targeted measures’ against Sri Lanka.

The countries that came out to speak for Sri Lanka were few, but it was Pakistan and refreshingly Japan this time round, that came out forcefully. 

Nevertheless Sri Lanka needs to remain vigilant that in September—at the same time when elections are supposed to take place here—it will have to contend with Resolutions 46/1 and 51/1 against the country which will get a new lease as the Core Group will seek its extension. UK has in fact, recommended that Sri Lanka agree to a ‘consensual resolution’ like it did during the 2015-2019 Government, a clearly unrealistic demand particularly in an election year. Having forced an evidence gathering mechanism into the conduct of Sri Lanka’s armed forces during the conflict that ended in 2009, this scrutiny has now morphed into a much wider socio-economic-political, all-embracing area.

The countries that came out to speak for Sri Lanka were few, but it was Pakistan and refreshingly Japan this time round, that came out forcefully. The Government has itself to blame for kicking the human rights ball into its own goal in these shifted posts. The formulation, and rushing through of bad laws like the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Online Safety Act, the Truth and Reconciliation Bill, and the Electronic Media Broadcasting Authority Bill have given a handle to the Core Group to whip Sri Lanka into shape. One might suggest that henceforth Sri Lanka gets its laws drafted and approved by Whitehall as was the case prior to 1948.

However, it is clear that the criticism against the Government, even if it comes from abroad, is justifiable because what they say is that the Government is not listening to its own voices at home. Hammering the double standards of the Core Group and the UNHRC is not an adequate strategy to ease its own difficulties on the world stage. The countries backing Sri Lanka remain few in Geneva. Japan and Pakistan came out forcefully in support.

India got a dose of its own medicine pontificating to its neighbours about the treatment of minorities, when the UNHRC chief referred to its own discrimination against minorities, especially the Muslims.

The regular good governance test in Geneva is in addition to the multiple parallel sweeping evaluations being performed on Sri Lanka , now both on the human rights front as well as on the economy through the IMF process and the Governance Diagnostic Assessment and on labour rights through the EU’s GSP+ process.

Economic gains and the ground reality

In Geneva, the UNHRC chief drew reference to Sri Lanka’s poverty having risen by an estimated 27.9 percent last year and how monthly incomes have decreased since March 2022. The IMF has, meanwhile, started its second review of Sri Lanka’s economic recovery programme. The Government anticipates that the difficult decisions it took over the past few months, including raising taxes, have paid sufficient dividends to convince the international financial agency to release its third tranche of funding.

In general, IMF support is aimed at buttressing efforts to “restore macroeconomic and financial stability and debt sustainability while enhancing growth-oriented structural reforms”. These are buzzwords many Sri Lankan economists live and die by. And it is true that the macroeconomic indicators are improving.

Sri Lanka’s poverty having risen by an estimated 27.9 percent last year and monthly incomes have decreased since March 2022.

•  Average food expenditure per month is Rs. 48,441.68.
• Food remains expensive and families are still avoiding proteins because they cannot afford them.
• Pulses like chickpeas (green gram has skyrocketed in price) are avoided in urban settings because they consume too much gas to cook.
• Ceylon Electricity Board statistics show that in November and December last year, some 145,000 homes were disconnected. 

On Wednesday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament that State revenue had risen by over 50% last year—alongside a surplus in the primary account—when compared with 2022, allowing the Government to settle outstanding dues to contractors. Losses incurred by major State-owned enterprises in 2022 were transformed into profits last year. And inflation dropped from 70 percent in September 2022 to 5.9 percent by last month.

The President also regretted “the tendency of certain political factions to prioritise rhetoric over tangible solutions”. Be that as it may, the “stability” narrative is less meaningful to the growing number of urban and rural poor than it is to economists. Because, while it has been emphasised that there will be “some pain” before these reforms provide widespread dividends, the degree and type of difficulties ordinary people are grappling with risk creating problems that last at least another generation.

Take the nutritional crisis. It has not abated. According to the National Consumer Price Index, the average food expenditure per month is Rs. 48,441.68. Food remains expensive and families are still avoiding proteins because they cannot afford them. Pulses like chickpeas (green gram has skyrocketed in price) are avoided in urban settings because they consume too much gas to cook.

With the new school term starting, there is a flood of charity requests for school provisions, in cash or kind: books, stationery, school bags, lunch boxes and water bottles. Shoes and uniforms are another critical need. Again, while some schools have received vouchers for shoes as well as uniform material from the Government, others have not.

Meanwhile, thousands of homes were cut off from the national electricity grid owing to soaring prices. Ceylon Electricity Board statistics show that in November and December last year, some 145,000 homes were disconnected. The problem with this is that once the arrears and penalties pile up, it becomes increasingly difficult to get supply back.

The era of subsidised utilities may be over, but time must be given for ordinary folk to get adjusted to the new measures and balance their home budgets just as the Government must the national budget.⍐

Israeli soldiers photographed with lingerie of Palestinian women in Gaza.

Israeli soldiers have photographed themselves posing with the lingerie of Palestinian women they have displaced or killed in Gaza.

Violating intimacies

                                                                                     BY NINA BERMAN  FEBRUARY 29, 2024 Mondweiss

Israeli soldiers have photographed themselves posing with the lingerie of Palestinian women they have displaced or killed in Gaza. They join a long line of conquest images, from Abu Ghraib images to the spectacle of Jim Crow-era lynchings.

It was the tongue that stopped me cold. The tongue and the savage, shit-eating grin on the soldier’s face as he and his buddy mug for the camera. Look at us! Look what we found. It’s a bra, a woman’s bra, a Palestinian woman’s bra left in a home she was forced to flee. And now it’s ours, and we’re going to play with it because we can, and we’re going to take it on the street and pose with it and show the world who we are, frat boys pumped for genocide. 

There is something unspeakably vile and infantile about the images of Israeli troops circulating on social media showing them posing for pictures with intimate apparel pilfered from the bedrooms of Gazan women. Amid the daily onslaught of murder, deprivation, and forced starvation, not to mention images of mutilated Palestinian children, here are Israeli soldiers beside themselves with self-congratulatory glee, gallivanting around snatching bras and ogling panties.

ISRAELI SOLDIERS PHOTOGRAPHED WITH LINGERIE OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN IN GAZA. (PHOTO: SOCIAL MEDIA)

How could they? But of course, they could. Of course, they would. While most militaries strive to present at least a public veneer of discipline and self-control, the IDF is charting a new course in the socially grotesque, delighted to revel in the foulest behavior aimed at total disregard for Palestinian life.

But these images, showing soldiers playing amidst their dirty work, shook me more than others. The video of women IDF soldiers dancing awkwardly with Gaza crumbling in the background was more pathetic than painful. The soldiers blowing up a building for their IG livestreams was brazen cynicism. The soldier who made a how-to video showing how he defecates in a plastic bag because there is no water in Gaza toilets, and then throwing that bag casually amid the rubble, was just plain disgusting.  

These pictures enter a different realm where one’s most intimate relations and private thoughts, feelings, and desires have been penetrated, looted, picked apart, and turned into jokes. 

These images are performances of masculinity based on humiliation, which day in and day out, is the fuel powering the occupation.

Israeli soldiers photographed with lingerie of Palestinian women
in Gaza. (Photo: Social Media)

What do we do with pictures like these that burrow in the brain? 

They join a long line of conquest images, some more brutal and explicitly violent than others.

I’m thinking of the spectacle lynching images from the Jim Crow American South, where crowds assembled to publicly celebrate and photograph the torture and murder of black men.

I’m thinking of the Abu Ghraib images where American soldiers posed laughing with Iraqi prisoners who they tied up and stripped naked and then forced into the camera’s frame as an additional humiliation.

While these images of IDF soldiers do not explicitly show murder and torture, they implicitly speak to the missing women and their missing men who loved and touched and cared for each other and shared private moments and pleasures. For that space to be violated makes the pictures unbearable.

How do we take the power of these images away from the image makers?

We do that by looking past the uniformed buffoons who are the direct subjects of the pictures and instead dwell on the women not seen but who once lived in these homes and wore the garments, who were mothers and sisters and daughters and lovers with dreams and ideas and concerns.  

ISRAELI SOLDIER POSES WITH LINGERIE OF PALESTINIAN WOMAN IN GAZA. (PHOTO: SCREENSHOT)

We do that by insisting on both imagining and preserving in our minds their full beings and refusing the narrative that attempts to sully and flatten them, which is how misogyny operates.  

There is another picture circulating. It shows an IDF soldier with a box of new white jeweled dress high heels, which he’s looted from a Palestinian woman. He’s going to bring them home and give them as a present to his woman instead. A souvenir from a genocide.

My mind focuses on the texture of the shoes, the intricate design, and the dimensions of the box. I travel to a place where I can see the woman who bought those shoes. Maybe she was planning to wear them for the wedding of a son or a daughter, or maybe she was going to celebrate her own anniversary or wanted something special for an upcoming family gathering. I eliminate the soldier from the frame and instead hold her close in my thoughts away from his prying hands.⍐ 

GR launches Book titled ‘The conspiracy to oust me from the Presidency’ today

 

GR launches book today detailing conspiracy behind his ouster from office

• Book titled ‘The conspiracy to oust me from the Presidency’ will be available in Sinhala/English
• Book seeks to explain his experience of an ‘internationally sponsored regime change operation’

FT Thursday, 7 March 2024

Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will launch a book today giving his version of events that led to his dramatic ouster from office in July last year. The book titled ‘The conspiracy to oust me from the Presidency’ will be available in Sinhala and English in bookshops from today, the office of the former President said in a news release yesterday.

“Foreign intervention has weighed heavily on Sri Lanka since we won the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009.

 From the time I was elected President in November 2019, certain foreign and local parties were intent on removing me from power,” Rajapaksa said in the news release.

He said that the entirety of his two and a half year tenure in power was spent combating the Covid-19 pandemic and that the conspiratorial forces commenced the political campaign to oust him from the Presidency at the end of March 2022 after the pandemic had been brought under control, the vaccination campaign concluded and just when the economy was beginning to recover.

----------------

My book “The Conspiracy to oust me from the Presidency” will be available in English and Sinhala at leading bookstores from tomorrow, Thursday, March 7th, 2024. The firsthand experience of an internationally sponsored regime change operation.

-------------------- 

“Today, foreign intervention and the manipulation of internal politics has become a fact of life in Sri Lanka in a manner never experienced in the first 60 years of independence of this country. The political campaign to oust me brought in a new element into the politics of Sri Lanka which has since independence experienced only peaceful transfers of power following elections,” he said.

Rajapaksa said that the events of 2022 are fraught with serious implications for the future of this country and what his books seeks to explain is his first-hand experience of an internationally sponsored regime change operation.⍐ 

ம.ஜ.இ.க வின் பாசிச எதிர்ப்பு மாநில மாநாடு

 

China raises defense budget by 7.2%

 

China raises defense budget by 7.2% for 2024, 'conducive to peace, stability'

By Liu Xuanzun

Published: Mar 05, 2024 10:26 AM Updated: Mar 05, 2024 10:32 AM
China on Tuesday announced a defense budget draft for 2024 worth 1.66554 trillion yuan ($231.36 billion), an increase of 7.2 percent from the previous year.
The moderate figure reflects China's reasonable, restrained and steady steps in national defense development, which takes factors including military modernization, external security environments and economic development into account, experts said.
The proposed defense budget was released in a draft budget report issued at the opening of the second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, on Tuesday.
China's defense budget has maintained single-digit growth for nine consecutive years since 2016. The growth rate was also set at 7.2 percent in 2023, while stably moved between six and eight percent in recent years. 
Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times that China's defense expenditure has been stable in recent years, and the consecutive single-digit growth showed that the increase is moderate and reasonable.
Many countries have hiked their military expenditures in recent years, Zhang said, citing the aggressive defense spending hike by countries like the US and Japan.
According to a Reuters report, US President Joe Biden in December 2023 reportedly authorized a record $886 billion annual military spending for fiscal 2024, nearly four times China's figure.
Japan's Cabinet in December 2023 approved a hefty 16 percent increase in military spending in 2024, in addition to easing its postwar ban on lethal weapons exports, underscoring a shift away from the country's self-defense-only principle, AP reported.
Zhang continued to note that, compared with other major military powers like the US, China's defense expenditure in share of its GDP is also at a low level.
In recent years, China's defense spending has generally accounted only about 1.3 percent of the country's GDP, while according to publicly available data, this figure for the US is about 3.5 percent, and the guideline figure for NATO members is 2 percent.
China can easily raise its military expenditure more radically thanks to the country's comprehensive development, and the fact that it is not doing so reflects the restraint in the setting of defense budget, analysts said.
From a policy perspective, China's national defense strategy is defensive in nature, China will not participate in an arms race with any country, and China takes a path of peaceful development, which is different from the approaches of some Western countries, particularly the US that pursues global hegemony, Zhang said.
Western media often misinterpret and smear China's defense budget, and these hypes are of double standards and bear malicious intentions, Zhang said.

High Light ENB

Lou Qinjian, the spokesperson for the second session of the 14th NPC, said at a press conference on Monday that in recent years, to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, to meet the needs of military transformation with Chinese characteristics, and to better fulfill China's international responsibilities and obligations as a major country, China has maintained reasonable and steady growth of its defense spending consistent with its sound and steady economic and social development, in a move to promote synchronized growth of defense capability and economic strength.
Lou stressed that, compared with major military powers such as the US, China's defense spending is quite low, whether as a percentage of GDP, or in terms of per capita and per-serviceperson.
China is committed to a path of peaceful development, stands ready to share development opportunities with other countries and foster a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, build a community with a shared future for mankind, and make new contributions to the noble cause of peace and development, the spokesperson said.
Stabilizing factor
China's military expenditure is mainly used in training missions, the development and production of modern weapons and development, the support of military reform and the welfare of military personnel, observers said.
The mission of any military force should be the ability to fight and win, and based on this concept, the Chinese military holds regular, combat-oriented exercises as realistic as possible, which are costly, another Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times.
With technological development, China needs to develop more advanced weapons and equipment and produce them in large quantity so the Chinese military can maintain its capability in safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests, the expert said, noting that while China has developed advanced weapons and equipment like the J-20 stealth fighter jet, the electromagnetic catapults-equipped aircraft carrier Fujian and the DF-17 hypersonic missile, their numbers are far from enough facing the grim security environment in the Asia-Pacific region.
In recent years, the US has continued to conduct frequent, highly intensive close-in reconnaissance operations and hold targeted, provocative military exercises at China's doorstep, in addition to rallying its allies and partners like the Philippines, Australia and Japan in forming a military encirclement to contain China.
Instigated by the US, the Philippines started in 2023 to repeatedly provoke China over Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea including Ren'ai Jiao (also known as Ren'ai Reef) and Huangyan Dao (also known as Huangyan Island), granted the US access to additional military bases close to the Taiwan Straits, and held joint exercises and patrols with the US.
Taking advantage of the US' strategy in containing China, Japan also showed worrying signs of a revival of its right-wing militarism by breaking away from its post-war self-defense-only principle and boosting its offensive capabilities.
The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program by Australia, the UK and the US continues to raise concerns of nuclear proliferation by the international community besides its geopolitical and military significance targeting China.
The global security environment overall also faces great instabilities under the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Under these circumstances, a strong Chinese military supported by a sufficient defense budget serves as a stabilizing factor, as it contributes to peace and stability by deterring security threats in the Asia-Pacific region and contributing to the global balance of power, experts said, noting that the Chinese military is a solid provider of public security goods to the international community, as it regularly conducts UN peacekeeping missions, naval escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia, as well as disaster relief and humanitarian aid operations.
Sufficient defense funding also enables the Chinese military to fulfill its international responsibilities and obligations, analysts said.⍐

• CHINA / MI

மாவீரன் சாந்தனுக்கு மக்கள் அஞ்சலி (காணொளிகள்)

 

நீதி கோருவோம்!

வடக்கில் சாந்தனின் புகழுடல் மக்களின் அஞ்சலிக்கு! நீதி கோர கோரிக்கை!!

 

வடக்கில் சாந்தனின் புகழுடல் மக்களின் அஞ்சலிக்கு! 

அரசியல் கைதி தில்லையம்பலம் சுதேந்திரராஜா (சாந்தன்) அவர்களது புகழுடல் நாளை ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை மக்கள் அஞ்சலிக்கு வைக்கப்படவுள்ள நிலையில் நாளைய தினமான ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமையினை தமிழ்த் தேசிய துக்கதினமாக அனுஸ்டிக்க பொது அமைப்புக்கள் பகிரங்க வேண்டுகோள் விடுத்துள்ளன.

நாளைய தினமான ஞாயிற்றுக் கிழமையினை(03/03) தமிழ்த் தேசிய துக்கதினமாக அனுஸ்டிக்க பொது அமைப்புக்கள் இன்று சனிக்கிழமை ஒன்று கூடி தீர்மானித்துள்ளதாக அறிவித்துள்ள `குரலற்றவர்களின் குரல் அமைப்பின்` இணைப்பாளர்  முருகையா கோமகன் நாளைய தினம் தேவையற்ற களியாட்ட நிகழ்வுகளை தவிர்த்து அமரர் சாந்தனிற்கு அனைவரும் திரண்டுவந்து அஞ்சலி செலுத்த அழைப்பு விடுத்துள்ளார்.

ஈழத்தில் சாந்தன் அஞ்சலிச் சுவரொட்டி

தமிழகத்தில் நோய்வாய்ப்பட்டு உயிர் துறந்த அரசியல் கைதி தில்லையம்பலம் சுதேந்திரராஜா (சாந்தன்) அவர்களது புகழுடல் நாளை ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை மக்கள் அஞ்சலி செலுத்த ஏதுவாக அவரது தாய் மண்ணிற்கு எடுத்துவரப்படவுள்ளது.

நாளை காலை 8மணிக்கு வவுனியாவில் மக்கள் அஞ்சலிக்கு வைக்கப்படும் சாந்தனின் புகழுடல் தொடர்ந்து மாங்குளம் பகுதிக்கு 9.00 மணிக்கு எடுத்துவரப்படவுள்ளது.

தொடர்ந்து காலை 10.30 மணிக்கு கிளிநொச்சியில் மக்கள் அஞ்சலியின் பின்னராக யாழ்ப்பாணத்திற்கு எடுத்துவரப்படவுள்ளது.

யாழ்ப்பாணத்தில் கொடிகாமம் நெல்லியடி ஊடாக அவரது பிறந்த மண்ணான உடுப்பிட்டிக்கு எடுத்துவரப்பட்டு வல்வெட்டித்துறை தீருவிலில் பிற்பகல் 2.00 மணி முதல் 4.00 மணிவரை மக்கள் அஞ்சலிக்கு வைக்கப்படவுள்ளது.

மாலை அவரது வீட்டிற்கு எடுத்துச்செல்லப்படும் புகழுடல் அடுத்த தினமான திங்கட்கிழமை அவரது குடும்ப மயானமான எள்ளங்குளம் மயானத்தில் அடக்கம் செய்யப்படவுள்ளது.

சாந்தன் படுகொலைக்கு நீதி கோரி இணைய சுவரொட்டி-ENB

வவுனியா ,கிளிநொச்சி மற்றும் யாழ்ப்பாண மாவட்டங்களில் முன்னெடுக்கப்படவுள்ள அஞ்சலி நிகழ்வுகளில்  அனைவரையும் அணி திரண்டு அஞ்சலி செலுத்த அழைப்பு விடுத்துள்ள பொது அமைப்புக்கள் அனைத்து இடங்களிலும் நீதி கோரியும் துக்கதினத்தை நினைவு கூரும் வகையில் கறுப்பு கொடிகளை தொங்கவிடவும் கோரிக்கை விடுத்துள்ளன.

சாந்தனின் மறைவிற்கு யாழ் பல்கலைக்கழத்தில் கறுப்புக் கொடி

இறுதி நினைவஞ்சலி நடாத்தப்படவுள்ள வல்வெட்டித்துறை தீருவிலில் அனைவரையும் திரண்டுவர அழைப்பு விடுத்துள்ள பொது அமைப்புக்கள் இறுதிக்கிரியைகள் நடைபெறும் திங்கட்கிழமை குடும்பத்தவர்கள் மற்றும் ஊர் மக்கள் அஞ்சலி செலுத்தவும் ஒத்துழைக்க கோரிக்கை விடுத்துள்ளன.

14-06-23 இல் - இறப்புக்கு 8 மாதங்கள் முன்னர் சாந்தனை தாயகம்
அழைக்கப் போராடக் கோரி ENB வெளியிட்ட பிரச்சாரச் சுவரொட்டி.
⍐

WTO MC13: US urged to correct .. bullying trade practices

US urged to correct unilateralism, bullying trade practices amid key WTO meeting

Beijing promotes cooperation, as Washington engages in protectionism

By 

Wang Cong

 and Feng FanPublished: Feb 27, 2024 12:11 AM

China's Commerce Ministry said on Monday that China firmly safeguards the multilateral trading system and attaches great importance to the work of the WTO, while slamming the US for violating WTO rules and engaging in unilateral trade bullying, which seriously undermines the global trade order and hurts the common interests of WTO members. 

The comments came as the WTO on Monday officially kicked off the 13th Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, as it seeks to tackle a wide range of issues, including reforms, fishing subsidies and digital trade, amid growing uncertainty in global trade.

China and the US, the world's two biggest economies, demonstrated starkly different approaches to global multilateral trade, with Chinese officials spearheading efforts to reform the WTO and supporting various works of the top trade body, while the US engaging in protectionism, economic bullying and finger-pointing, experts said. 

Though the WTO faces increasing challenges posed by members like the US that have called WTO's relevance into question, the global multilateral trade body continues to enjoy firm support from a vast majority of its members, including China, and is more critical than ever in helping navigate a tumultuous period in global trade by championing cooperation among members, experts noted.

The 13th WTO Ministerial Conference comes at a crucial moment, as both the WTO and global trade face tremendous challenges and risks. For the WTO, as some members led by the US openly disregard its rules and even work to cripple its core functions such as the Appellate Body, its influence and relevance have been questioned. Meanwhile, global trade is also facing a rising tide of anti-globalization, protectionism and economic nationalism, while geopolitical conflicts also weigh on trade. 

Speaking at the conference on Monday, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said the Chinese government firmly safeguards the multilateral trading system and attaches great importance to the work of the WTO, and will work with all parties to promote the success of this ministerial meeting and jointly build an open world economy.

Wang also said China will steadily expand institutional opening-up, cut the negative list for foreign investment access, implement the comprehensive lifting of restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, and ensure equal treatment for foreign-invested enterprises. China is confident that it will push China's economy forward steadily in a new stage of high-quality development and provide lasting impetus for world economic and trade growth, he said.

Huo Jianguo, a vice chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday that China has always firmly supported multilateral trade organizations with practical actions, but under the interference of US protectionism, multilateral trade organizations are indeed relatively fragile and it is difficult to reach a satisfactory agreement.

US bullying 

While final outcomes of the ministerial conference remain to be seen, one striking trend emerged: even as China and other developing countries are promoting sensible reforms of the WTO to make it more inclusive and influential, the US continues to pose hurdles for any meaningful reforms and engage in protectionism and economic bullying.

Such a difference was clear even before the WTO ministerial conference started. On Sunday, Wang met with WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Abu Dhabi and stressed that China stands ready to work with all parties to push for more pragmatic outcomes of the conference. Specifically, China supports resuming the normal operation of the dispute settlement mechanism, formulating a work plan for agricultural negotiations, responding to the food security demands of the least developed countries and net food-importing developing countries, and promoting the conclusion of the second phase of the fishery subsidy agreement.

Also on Sunday, Wang and Okonjo-Iweala attended the China Round Table on WTO accessions, which aims to help developing members, especially the least developed countries, better integrate into the multilateral trading system. "Many thanks to China for supporting this sharing of experiences and learning for newly acceding members like Comoros and Timor Leste and the 22 countries in the accession pipeline - of which one third are Arab countries," Okonjo-Iweala said.

"China is a member of the multilateral mechanism, so we hope that the WTO can reach a consensus so that the organization can operate fully, and we can discuss the reform of the WTO mechanism," Li Xiangyang, director-general of National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday, while highlighting damages caused by the US on the WTO, including blocking the appointment of new judges to the Appellate Body, a crucial function of the WTO that resolves disputes among members. 

In stark contrast to China's positive role, the US continues to stir up trade tensions. Ahead of the WTO Ministerial Conference, the Office of the US Trade Representative released a report on China's WTO compliance, which was filled with accusations against China. "China remains the biggest challenge to the international trading system established by the World Trade Organization," US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said.

China's Ministry of Commerce slammed assertions in the report as baseless. The US side criticizes China's economic and trade policies with baseless and arbitrary standards, falsely calls China's legitimate trade measures "economic coercion," and confuses right and wrong, which "fully reflects the unilateralism and bullying behavior of the US," the ministry said on Monday. 

The Ministry further pointed out that in recent years, the US, with its "America first" agenda, violated WTO rules, engaged in unilateral economic bullying, formulated discriminatory industrial policies, which disrupted global supply chains, seriously undermined the global trade order and hurt the common interests of WTO members. 

On the sidelines of the WTO meeting on Monday, Wang met with Tai and had professional and in-depth exchanges on bilateral and multilateral trade issues of mutual concern. Wang also expressed China's serious concerns about the US' additional tariffs on China and Taiwan-related economic and trade issues, according to the Chinese Commerce Ministry.

"The US has always said one thing and done another. The current position of the WTO is directly related to the US. The US took the lead in paralyzing the dispute settlement mechanism," Huo said, noting that the US has also violated many WTO rules by wantonly imposing tariffs, taking protectionist actions and enacting domestic laws in contradiction of multilateral trade rules and norms. "In this situation, the US is not qualified to accuse China at all."⍐