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The doctrine of the new World Trade Order (WTO) shall suddenly open the whole world
to unobstructed trade. The nations shall have limited sovereign leverage to obstruct trade
from any region or quarter on the basic of mere emotional or strategic reasons. This being
so, there shall be & strong competition amongst the industrial nations, also called the
First World, to find markets for their perpetually increasing capacity to produce
exportable surpluses and to compete in the race to reduce their unemployment ratio to the
minimum. Such nations are economically stable, and effective enough to influence the
economics and politics of most of the countries in the Third World.

Recent events have quite vividly demonstrated that the affluent industrial nations can
easily define their national security concerns and interests within other sovereign
territories and can even send armed forces for taking the "right measures" to protect their
"own security". The characteristics of most of such security concerns of the First World
natipns generally have been of commercial and financial nature. By simple
interpolation, one can make out that one of the main efforts of such countries during the
next few years (less than five years) shall be to aggressively develop new consumer
markets for their products. The strategy of finding .such markets on a sustainable basis
shall, essentially, include the policy a.« we, the development planners, advocate for
fighting under in a poor country; "do not only produce surplus food but also
creaie/enh'Kice the capacity of the poor to enable him to buy or procure food." As
producing food only Is a fraction of the solution for fighting hunger, fining or discovering
new markets on the part of the developed nation* shall be a part of the solution for selling
their large surpluses. There shall be a simultaneous effort for building the capacities of
the consumer nations.

Being a consumer, shall become a blessing in disguise for some of the highly populated
countries of the Third World during in initial phase. Such countries shall be pampered,
their strategic disputes or irritants shall be helped out and a strong campaign shall be
started to develop acceptance for new products in such countries.

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449

A transition in consumption pattern of the people of poor/developing nations may take

place sooner than the proliferation of the computers, satellite transmission and the
phenomena like fax, E-mail, Internet or call back etc.

The dilemma of the Third World countries Is that they are heavily dependent on imports,
do not have resources to pay and no plans to change for the better. They are, therefore,
fast becoming highly indebted nations with outstanding debt in excess of 50 per cent
of.GDP (Pakistan's debt is over 85 per cent of GDP), This puts the nations into a vicious
circle of growing poverty an the leadership in such countries gradually becomes
"economic prisoner" to the lending.nations and/or institutions. Most of the development
and even operational expenditures of such countries are met by borrowing. The system of
government that evolves out of the situation is that the political leadership is hypnotised
and/or over scared and too weak to be innovative. This blurs their vision and kills their
initiatives. Bureaucracies on the other hand have their vital interests that get served by the
foreign institutions. The final stage arrives when political leadership, despite claims and
will to improve the situation, soon falls in the trap and becomes 'ike it bureaucratic
advisors, inefficient and corrupt.

One of the major issues concerning new WTO i? that the nations that Want to become
industrialised in order to produce import substituting products, shall be .starting with a
poor economic and financial base and technology lag of the order of few decades. This
shall countries due to cheap raw materials and the cheap labour. This phenomenon is
already visible in some of the sectors. In the textile sector, for example, some of the
highly industrialise nations like Japan import total raw cotton needs from countries like
Pakistan, India and Central Asian Rennhl>"c etc. Japanese labour wages are some of the
highest ia the world. But still Japanese cloth, because of the superior quality and better
technology, competes with the cloth produced in any other part of the world and sells
better. No textile industry in Pakistan or India has been able to effectively compete with
the textile products from me Fhu World. There are no evidence to suggest that arty policy
instrument or measure shall help the industry in t!ie Third World countries to effectively
compete with the one in the First World. Through a process of continuous shut-down of
existing industrial units, such countries shall essentially became net exporters of raw
materialwithout any or substantial processing or value addition.

The world population today stands at about 5 billion Coincidentaliy, 60 per cent of the
world population, about 3 billion, 450

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a concentrated in China and India only. In order to optimise their marketing efforts, the
designs of the developed countries shall focus on these countries with large volumes of
population. Through an initial phase of pampering and aggressive marketing, the tastes
and consumption pattern of the population shall be modified to accent the new products
and get "hooked". It shall be during this stage WJ^f u 1Uinber of ****& and poetical
problems of these countries shall be helped out to the advantage of the above two nations
by the powerful First World. y .

_ According to an analysis, issue like Kashmir, Tamils, Hong Kong, Japan-China

territorial irritants shali get resolved more to please India and China. Political and
economic instabilities shall be artificially introduced in countries like Pakistan through
internal or external manipulation. The strategic capacity of such countries shall te made
limited or probably too "toothless" to effectively and utdkgnty counter any move against
their national interests. The political infighting and polarisation shall be on the increase
and it shall become impossible to develop a national consensus amongst the politicians or
the people from various regions of the country about critical economic and strategic
issues. Such nations shali become neavily dependent on imports, particularly for the
essential goods and food World shall castrate some of the potential nuclear Third World
countries like Pakistan. This may be good strategy, if applied universally and equitably
mass destruction. It will, however, be very unjust and dangerous when such a strategy of
denuclearisation shall be applied by the First World in a discriminatory manner for selling
their goods and/or for "people leasing." e

«, _ According to my analysis, the phase of pampering and taste development" may span
over 5-10 years. During this period, the hi-tech industry of china and India shall suffer
the most and they shall be manipulated and convinced to believe that their comparative
advantages lie in imports of critical products at low prices, instead of producing
themselves at higher prices, and with such a massive illiterate population, poor
economies, low level of technologies and skewed balance of trade, they shall become net
exporters of raw material, agricultural products and muscle power The economies shall
gradually transform into the one based on lowcapital plantations and most of the
population shall become captive producers of raw materials or such products. This shall
trigger a new type of economic/trade colonisation and shall further reinforce deep and
massive poverty in the two countries. This process may continued for about a century
until a wave of jealously may erupt again due to trade imbalances or competition amongst
the

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.developed world and wars may start. This may bring about new wave of geographic re-
adjustments. Some countries might have to disintegrate or disappear and new
arrangements shall be invited for searching sustainable peace. If this war also results in a
use of Weapons of mass destruction, it may be the end of the race. This may sound too
depressing or pessimistic, but logic certainly supports it.

The question is that, how can countries like Pakistan save themselves from the possibly
emerging scenario explained above? The options for countries like Pakistan include:

1. Plan and build up the resilience .during the next 10 years in order to safely pass the
transition period of the honeymoon of the First World with India.

1.

2.

3.
4.

5.
6.

2. Increase the economic efficiency of the governmental system.

3. Acquire high technology as soon as possible.

4. Become net surplus producer of processed goods to reduce imports and compete with
the developed world.

5. Develop regional blocks for trading primary and processed good without attaching any
strategic agendas with trade.

6. Review the implications of WTO and suggest amendments for ensuring the
detachment of trade and strategic manoeuvring.

7. Become self-sufficient in food.

8. Strengthen democracies and reduce internal polarisation.

9. Make long-term investments in education and technological research and development.

10. Optimise the use of available human, land, water and mineral resources to the best
advantage of the majority of the population.

11. Resolve outstanding strategic issues with other countries in most peaceful manner.

12. Help to make the institution of UN as independent as possible to decide issues

equitably and with justice.

The agenda for action for Pakistani leadership besides above should set up a high power
committee to seriously and honestly review of its stand and strategy about WTO and
GATT, and come up with suggestions so that the new order ensures prosperity an peace
instead of poverty and wars. UN/WTO leadership may like to ask themselves a question,
whether theill*

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current UN decade on poverty alleviation and the simultaneous implementation of WTO

are mutually sustainable? If the answer is yes, let us tell the world; if the answer is no, let
us initiate a debate so that the interest of the majority of the population of the world is
secured by the actions of the UN.

Some people with vision have already started to observe the signals about the above
stated scenario. They have also started to speak about the population size as "more the
merrier," and "to be a consumer is power," at least during a short to medium time frame.
Does Pakistani leadership have any view or vision about this imminent scenario or we
shall wait for the axe to fall? The Prophet and King Solomon had said: "Nations with out
vision shall soon perish."

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