The
Editor's Page:
By Max W. Sung
Protectionism hunters: This year marks the 46th year of publication
of Textile Asia since its debut in 1970. It has also been six years
since Textile Asia's founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief, Kayser
Sung, passed away. The magazine has continued to publish without interruption,
upholding the legacy of Mr Sung.
Kayser Sung came to textile journalism primed from his previous experiences
as reporter and feature writer for Reuters, then as managing editor
and publisher of the Far Eastern Economic Review. At that time, truthful
and objective reporting in Asia was fraught with hurdles. Collecting
actual data then was a costly process which not many publishers could
undertake, and governments were reluctant to permit critical examination
of the state of economic affairs in their countries while politics led
some national leaders to disguise or disregard economic realities. In
1964, Mr Sung received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for journalism and
literature jointly with Dick Wilson, then editor of the Far Eastern
Economic Review. The Magsaysay Award was in recognition of their accuracy,
impartiality and continuing search for facts and insights in recording
Asia's quest for economic advance. The citation also said: "In their
editing of the Review, they have demonstrated that journalism can play
a constructive role in fostering healthy growth." Mr Sung once said,
"Journalism was my choice of profession because I had strong views on
the necessity for an informed public, and consequently for accurate
information and for free and, as far as possible, unprejudiced comment."
Mr Sung had researched and written extensively about the rise of the
Asian textile industry. In the early 1960s, he edited the Hong Kong
Textile Annual and the Asian Textile Annual and Survey. His expertise
was sought by the United Nations in 1965 when he was asked to join a
four-member textile experts group in a research project on the Asian
textile industry for the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East
(ECAFE). A collection of his writings on the textile industry has been
published in a 2,022-page chronicle, Asia in the Textile World 1950s
to 2000. From the prestigious Textile Institute in Manchester, he received
the Medal of the Council of the Textile Institute (1983), Companionship
of the Institute (1999), and the Honorary Fellowship Award of the Institute
(2010), the highest award, for innovative contribution to the advancement
of the global textile and clothing industry.
Mr Sung also had a long association with the Hong Kong Economic Association
(HKEA) of which he was vice-president from 1966 to 2000, and afterward
a member of its executive committee. In 2012, the HKEA introduced its
annual Best Paper Award, chosen from articles published in its serial
publication, the Pacific Economic Review. The first award was dedicated
to the memory of Kayser Sung. Most fittingly, the award went to Michael
Dooley (University of California, Santa Cruz), David Folkerts-Landau
(Deutsche Bank) and Peter Garber (Deutsche Bank) for their paper "Bretton
Woods II Still Defines the International Monetary System" (PEW 14:297-311
(2009). The paper explores how the international monetary system still
operates in the way described by the Bretton Woods II framework; failure
to identify the causes of the current crisis risks a rise in protectionism
that could intensify and prolong the decline in economic activity around
the world.
Throughout his career, Mr Sung had been a vocal opponent of textile
protectionism, particularly since 1960 when he was commissioned by the
Hong Kong Cotton Merchants' Association to compile the history of Hong
Kong's textile and clothing industry concerning the course of its textile
trade negotiations with Lancashire. After protracted negotiations, the
British Cotton Board succeeded in wringing out an agreement from Hong
Kong, which set a precedent for India and Pakistan. The Americans sought
similar arrangements with Hong Kong and other big textile exporting
territories, leading to the Short Term Arrangement regarding Trade in
Cotton Textiles and, subsequently, the Long-Term Arrangement. The Multifibre
Arrangement (MFA) was introduced in 1974, imposing quotas for developing
countries' export to developed countries. Mr Sung was instrumental in
collecting and disseminating information that clarified the issues concerning
quota restrictions.
He once wrote: "My primary concern was with the obvious derogation from
the principles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
the cornerstone of the world's post-WWII prosperity. I also desired
fair play for the exporters, which, except for Japan, were all economically
backward. Their exports, it was evident, would enable them to buy the
developed world's machinery and technology, the less they were allowed
to export, the less that developed countries could hope to sell their
specialties. Conversely, free trade in textiles would promote the prosperity
of all concerned. I, therefore, called constantly for an end to the
MFA and reintegration of world textile trade into the GATT system."
GATT was a multilateral agreement among 153 countries for reducing tariffs
and other trade barriers and eliminating preferences on a reciprocal
and mutually advantageous basis. Within his lifetime, Mr Sung was able
to witness the implementation of GATT into the WTO Agreement on Textile
and Clothing, and finally, the abolition of quota restrictions on textile
and clothing trade beginning on January 1, 2005.
With the elimination of quota restrictions, protectionism in the post-2005
era has taken on more creative forms. Export subsidies and countervailing
duties, dumping and anti-dumping tariffs, industry subsidies both direct
and indirect, are common, and can be approved by the WTO depending on
circumstances. Mr Sung would have a grand time looking at these non-quota
protectionist measures and figuring out fair solutions for all parties
concerned.
