It's easier to join the WTo debate now that the korean protesters are gone
Many will be relieved that Korean week (aka the World Trade Organisation's 6th Ministerial Conference) is finally over. Hong Kong has rallied to the side of the South Korean farmers, seeing a battling underdog. However, with the protesters heading to the airport or banged up, Lai See is prepared to bravely join the debate.
It does seem interesting that South Korea is one of the biggest trading economies, being a massive beneficiary of the international trading system. That the farmers constitute 5 per cent of the country's workforce. And that their beef is not so much with the WTO as with anybody (whether subsidised or not) who presumes to try and sell food into their market.
Distressed at the way Hong Kong people seemed to have been bowled over by the protectionist argument, government economist Kwok Kwok-chuen (pictured) lamented this morning in a group email: 'The basic concept of the free market is just so powerful, so simple, so important and yet so little understood by so many people!'
Let them eat kim chee, we say, Australian kim chee.
Services? for whose well-being?