Hierarchies of trade in Yiwu and Dushanbe: The case of an Uzbek merchant family from Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the trading trajectory of an Uzbek family of merchants from Tajikistan. This family runs businesses in both Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, and China’s famous international trading city: Yiwu. The analysis is centred on the accounts placed by Tajikistan’s Uzbek merchants about their historically sustained experience, often across several generations, in trading activities. These merchants’ claims of belonging to a ‘historical’ trading community rather than being ‘newcomers’ to long-distance commerce are articulated in relation to notions of ‘hierarchies of trade’ as they evolve in a twofold relational model linking Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood and Dushanbe. I suggest that the forms of conviviality enacted in Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood need to be understood in terms of the historical, multinational and transregional contacts that have occurred within the spaces of the former Soviet Union, as well as along the China-Russia and China-Central Asian borders. Equally, the hierarchies of trade of Uzbek merchants from Tajikistan in Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood cut-across markers of identity that juxtapose the roles of Tajik and Uzbek communities in Tajikistan’s contemporary politics and economics.     

Merchant identities,trading nodes,and globalization: Introduction to the Special Issue

ABSTRACT

The contributors to this Special Issue are concerned by the nature of transregional Asian interactions taking place in the field of commerce. They explore this concern through an examination of the experiences, activities, and histories of commodity traders whose life trajectories criss-cross Asia. The articles share a common geographic point of reference: Yiwu – an officially designated ‘international trade city’ located in China’s eastern Zhejiang province. The introduction to the Special Issue analytically locates the individual papers in relationship to a long-standing body of work in anthropology and history on port cities and trading nodes. In so doing it suggests the importance of considering multiple historical processes to understanding Yiwu and its position in China and the world today, as well as, more generally, for the anthropology of ‘globalization from below’.     

State Collapse as Business: The Role of Conflict Trade and the Emerging Control Agenda

This article examines the role played by conflict trade in the process of state collapse. Conflict trade is defined here as the trade in non–military goods such as diamonds, timber and drugs that finances war. Such trade includes both the export and import of goods to a war zone as well as extra–territorial trade undertaken by supporters of a warring faction. It is argued that the decline of superpower military aid coupled with the broader effects of centre–periphery exploitation mediated through a neo–liberal and western imposed version of globalization has meant such trade has a particular salience both in contemporary conflict and the process of state collapse. Equally, though, the reliance of warring factions on conflict trade means they are also susceptible to changes in the market for their goods, creating a vulnerability that can (and to some extent has been) exploited to promote peace. The emerging control agenda on conflict trade is currently characterized by a number of problems — most notably, the risk that the control of conflict trade might become a substitute for action on arms exports; that international action has largely been undertaken within an inappropriate statist paradigm; that control has sometimes taken second place to economic or strategic interests and that policy has become hostage to a ‘drugs and thugs’ agenda which risks undermining its effectiveness.     

Palace Fundamentalism and Liberal Democracy: Oil,Arms and Irrationality

With the end of the Cold War, some students of international affairs have suggested that the next field of conflict will be defined in cultural terms, between West and East, and particularly between liberal democracy and Islam. In this essay, it is argued that constructing a dichotomy between ‘rational’ Western democracy and ‘irrational’ Islam is not only dangerous but hypocritical. Support for the most backward and fanatical forms of Islamic fundamentalism has long been an element in the global geopolitical strategies of Western democracies. The trade in oil and arms has had particularly perverse social and political effects, which must be confronted in order to provide greater opportunities for the development of a modern civil society in the Arab world.     

Australia's flawed approach to trade negotiations: and where do we sign?

Economists have warned for many years that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) will not necessarily increase economic welfare in Australia given the relatively small size of the economy and the country’s lack of negotiating coin. The Productivity Commission cautioned in its major report on PTAs that there seemed to be a mindset of ‘agreements for agreement’s sake’, in part because of fears of missing out on a bandwagon that has attracted Australia’s major trading partners. Political and security considerations have played an important role in shaping Australia’s approach to PTAs. When politics trumps economics in negotiations of PTAs there is a risk of a rush to premature agreement that produces sub-optimal outcomes, that undermines broader plurilateral and global negotiations, and that introduces new and undesirable distortions in trade and public policies. Various theoretical approaches to trade policymaking provide insights into why Australian governments have been willing to conclude these sub-optimal deals.     

Women's Work and Market Hierarchies Along the Border of Lao PDR

Contrary to claims by some neo‐liberalists that international borders are becoming irrelevant, market liberalisation can actually enhance the effect that borders have on the lives of the people living along them. This study examines how the opening of border trade between Laos and Thailand has influenced gender divisions of labour, and definition of women's work along the border zone. Studies were undertaken in two border areas in Lao PDR—Sayaboury province and Kammoune province. In the former, cotton‐weaving activities were studied and in the latter, sticky rice box production. The production and trading of these commodities brought crucial cash income to the women studied and their households. How the women benefited from these activities in terms of income and status depends on how other members of the family perceived these activities. However, the formalisation of the border trade has changed women's ‘sense of space’ and their relations with men and other women.     

Theory of Comparative Advantage: Do Transportation Costs Matter?

In this paper we present a formal analysis that incorporates returns to transportation into a Ricardian framework to predict trade patterns. The important point gained from this analysis is that increasing returns to transportation, coupled with appropriate distances between trading partners, can be shown to reverse Ricardian predictions even when there are no international differences in tastes, technology, or factor endowments. Additional gains from trade may emerge from reductions in aggregate delivery costs owing to scale economies.     

THE OPTIMAL DISTANCE TO PORT FOR EXPORTING FIRMS*

ABSTRACT Success in international trade depends, among other things, on distance from markets. Most new economic geography models focus on the distance between countries. In contrast, much less theorizing and empirical analysis have focused on how distances within a country—for instance, due to the location behavior of exporting firms—matter to international trade. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on the latter by offering a theoretical model to explain the optimal distance that an export‐oriented firm would locate from a port. We present empirical evidence in support of the model.     

Towards Free Trade in the Pacific? The Genesis of the ‘Kava‐Biscuit War’ between Fiji and Vanuatu

Contemporary movements towards trade liberalisation have influenced economic development in Pacific island states, where opportunities for growth have always been restricted. The new free trade, centred on comparative advantage, is especially challenging for countries producing sugar, where diversification is difficult, and for the smallest states where trade options have always been limited. New regional trade agreements have been introduced in the Pacific as a step towards global free trade, but have emphasised trade rivalry and conflict, characterised by the ‘kava‐biscuit war’ between Fiji and Vanuatu, rather than complementary trade and cooperation. Movement towards free trade poses acute problems for island states, yet international agreements have not recognised their particular disadvantages, and continue to stress benefits that are nowhere apparent in the Pacific.     

Between national sovereignty and international power: what external voice for the euro?

Does the creation of the euro imply that the European Union is now speaking with one voice in international monetary matters? Is the EU therefore likely to challenge the hegemony of the United States on the world stage, at least in the realm of international financial diplomacy? This article analyses the current state of external representation of the common currency and asks why the issue of the euro’s single voice has not yet been resolved. Comparing other areas of common policy–making that have an external dimension, such as trade, the authors explore the specificities of monetary and financial affairs that make the conflict between national sovereignty and international efficiency so difficult to settle. In particular, the authors focus on a set of international institutional arrangements regarding economic policy–making within the EU, and external arrangements within international fora (the IMF and the G7), which have so far impeded the ability of the EU to play a coherent role on the international monetary stage. The authors argue that the fact of the euro means there needs to exist a clear system of political representation in the area of monetary and financial governance in the EU, and they explore various options for who the external voice of the euro could be. Finally, the implications of creating the euro’s external voice for transatlantic relations, for EU enlargements, and for the debate about the ‘democratic deficit’ in Europe are analysed.     

Disabilities,urban natures and children’s outdoor play

Normative, widely circulated discourses about the value of outdoor, natural play for children overwhelmingly marginalize the experiences of families with disabled children, who can often experience outdoor/natural play as a site of hard work, heartache, dread, resignation and inadequacy. This paper presents findings from research with 60 North London families with children aged 5–16 who have a statutory ‘Statement of Special Needs’. Focusing on these families’ experiences of visiting designated, newly refurbished accessible natural play-spaces in two local country parks, the paper highlights: (i) the multiple, compound social-material ‘barriers to fun’ encountered in these spaces; (ii) the profound emotional-affective impacts of such barriers, most notably in terms of feelings of ‘resignation’ and ‘dread’; (iii) parents’/carers’ sadness occasioned by perceived ‘failures’ to ‘live up to’ normative ideals of parenting and family engagement with outdoor play and urban natures; (iv) nevertheless, the possibility of moments of family joy, love and ‘special’ time, afforded via families’ ‘hard work’ and ‘keeping going through hard times’. Through an engagement with recent conceptualizations of everyday geographies of disabilities, the paper suggests that these qualitative experiences complicate some chief, normative ways of knowing outdoor play, urban natures and barriers to accessibility.     

China and the “culture and trade” debate: a holistic approach

ABSTRACT

Over the past century, the ‘culture and trade’ debate has constantly evolved, particularly in the wake of rapid and still accelerating technological and scientific advances. These changes, manifest in an increasing convergence of many new technologies and industries, meant that the strict separation of culture from trade by means, for instance, of general or special exceptions in international trade agreements, such as the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) or the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), can no longer be sustained. It means that in light of the emergence of oxymoronic concepts like ‘the cultural and creative industries’, the debate can no longer be framed along binary modes of thinking that oppose the liberalization of international trade and the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultures. Instead a more holistic approach seems to be needed, which appears to coincide with the approach taken by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which joined the WTO in 2001. The present paper examines the holistic approach by the PRC, which seeks to combine rather than separate culture and trade in its domestic, regional and global law and policymaking.     

Translocal Householding: Care and Migrant Livelihoods in a Waste‐trading Community of Vietnam's Red River Delta

This article examines the shifting household organization of care and livelihoods in a community of Vietnam's Red River Delta that has a history of migrating to work in the urban waste trade, and has been doing so increasingly since the socialist country embraced a market economy in the mid‐1980s. In Spring District, household care and livelihood activities have been taking place across the city and the countryside for decades, indicating the degree to which the rural household reflexively opens up its spatial and social boundaries in response to broader processes of change. Their trajectories reveal fluidity in terms not only of spatial mobility but also of the gendered configuration of paid work and care, and complex dynamics between household care practices and the development of waste trading as a particular migrant livelihood activity. The analysis draws on and advances the concept of ‘householding’ emerging from recent discussion of the globalization of social reproduction.     

The Trade of Traditional Chinese Medicine Materials in Hankou from 1872 to 1919

The inter-port trade of traditional Chinese medicinal (TCM) materials dominated business structure in Hankou in 1872 to 1919, while the transfer trade of TCM materials also played an important role. Before 1904, musk was the predominant trading medicinal material among all TCM materials traded in Hankou, followed by Rhus chinensis mill. In the modern times, Hankou ranked second only to Shanghai in China in terms of the trading volume of TCM materials, since Hankou enjoyed a pronounced growth momentum then. If we look at each TCM materials’ market size, trading routes, and trading volume among various inflow and outflow ports, we can see based on the Hankou TCM materials trading structure that although there were changes from 1872 to 1919, the TCM business network and market performances formed in Hankou since the Qing dynasty did not sustain any disastrous impact from national economic and social changes, and their original vitality had retained. This was primarily due to the huge market demand in modern Hankou, the TCM commodity characteristics and the developed domestic market trade network in modern China.     

A trade balance: litigation and negotiation in the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement system

The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been widely accepted as representing the legalisation of world trading rules. However, it is important to reflect on the limits of this legalisation thesis in terms of the interface between international and domestic policy processes. By locating trading disputes in a political analysis of policy implementation, it is argued that it is difficult to establish conceptually how the WTO dispute settlement system could have authority separate from and above the conventional international politics of trade policy relations. Instead, the article argues that case outcomes should be expected to be largely the product of domestic political institutions and policy processes, and how these intersect with developments in the WTO dispute settlement system. Brief studies of the Australian government's dispute settlement strategy and two high-profile WTO disputes—the US upland cotton and European Union sugar cases—serve to suggest that the authority of international trade law is not as significant as assumed by the legalisation thesis. Rather, domestic politics and institutions have an important impact on the outcome of trade disputes.     

Sino–American relations and the ‘Australian factor’: inflated expectations or discriminate engagement?

Orchestrating relations between its American security ally and increasingly crucial Chinese trading partner constitutes perhaps the major foreign policy challenge now confronting Australia. The Howard government insists that it can pursue such diplomacy without having to choose between the US and China in the event of a future great power regional confrontation. Both Washington and Beijing, however, appear intent on pulling Australia into their own orbits of influence. This article contends that neither of them will be content to allow Australia to apply a ‘discriminate engagement’ policy toward their own regional interests if Sino–American strategic competition intensifies over Taiwan or throughout the Asia–Pacific region. It reviews Chinese and American strategic expectations regarding Australia and their response to that country's relations with the other, and outlines growing policy imperatives that Australia must confront in order to overcome current anomalies in its ‘dual strategy’ directed toward China and the United States.     

Food Dependency in Sub-Saharan Africa: Simply a Matter of ‘Vulnerability’, or Missed Development Opportunity?

This article seeks to refocus some of the attention devoted in the past several decades to the issue of food security in sub-Saharan Africa to the broader context of food dependency. Using panel data for 44 countries over a period of 51 years (1961–2011), the article tests several hypotheses drawn from Lewis's classical model of development characterized by ‘unlimited supplies of labour’. The model requires either rising agricultural productivity (the closed model) or imports of global market foodstuffs (the open model) to ensure the low food prices and wages required for capital accumulation. Empirical results reject a positive association between food dependency, as represented by five decades of increasing per capita grain imports, and any measurable level of economic modernization with sufficient forward momentum to spur or justify such dependency. Results suggest instead a significant correlation between increasing food dependency and separate panel time periods associated with differing trade and policy regimes. More importantly, empirical results call for a re-evaluation of Lewis's original development model, focusing on the pivotal role of a supported food subsistence sector in creating economic possibilities for development.     

Media portrayal of the cultural relationship between Australia and Japan

This article traces Japanese and Australian media portrayals of the cultural aspects to the bilateral relationship. The article examines popular discourse about Japan and Australia in the media of each country, demonstrating how this has reflected the evolution of the cultural relationship. In Australia, the press has swung from portraying Japan as a problematic source of income from the resources trade, through to the home of ‘cool’ technology and fashion. In Japan, discourse about Australia has ranged from images of a country populated with cute animals, to a regional partner sharing the same democratic ideals. The article draws from the personal experiences of the author who was a correspondent and journalist for Australian and Japanese news corporations during the 1980s and 1990s. The author covered the ‘koala wars’ and the frill-necked lizard boom prompted by the Mitsubishi Mirage television commercial, as well as monitoring the growth in Japanese tourism to Australia. The author also draws on data from tracking surveys conducted by the Embassy of Japanese in Australia.