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OUTBREAKS
of bird flu have triggered skirmishes in
the intermittent chicken wars between China
and America. Hostilities even broke out
in Canada with the Americans joining the
Chinese in the banning of British Columbia
poultry.
That
at least had China and the US on the same
side last December. In this, the mainland
was joined by Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan
and Japan.
But
that was a mere distraction. Trade deals
that appear to be headlined with the easing
of rules and liberalisation dissolve into
complex bureaucratic minutia and become
hard if not impossible to comply with any
profit. Few better examples can be found
than in the recent developments in the chicken
wars.
Canadian
restrictions began on December 4, the same
day that Canada identified the virus as
the "highly pathogenic". Of course
Canadian exports are insignificant as 99
per cent of US chicken is produced domestically.
But the ban allowed the US to parade its
lofty health and safety standards. Of course,
China had to do the same, showing their
standards were loftier still.
These
days countries cannot justify bans on economic
grounds because that is no long kosher with
the World Trade Organisation. (WTO). But
health and safety trumps all in a risk-averse
world in which one's sensitivity is a measure
of one's class.
The
point is the poultry market is humongous
both here and in the United States. This
is not lost of China because it is aware
that much of the chicken consumed here comes
from giant plants throughout the US southeast
- Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. From
January through November US exports to China
reached US$272 million with China being
a major export market for US chicken, turkey
and duck. More than 90 per cent of the chicken
feet consumed in Hong Kong come from the
US.
Another
"freakonomics" point is that chicken
wings fetch better prices that boneless
chicken meat simply because of the popularity
"Buffalo Wings" that earn their
capitalisation fairly by hailing from Buffalo,
New York.
Not
surprisingly, the Chinese would like to
share in this vast popular market not only
at home, but in America too. And health
and safety reasons are reasons enough for
the tit for tat bans. Or bans were are camouflaged
as permissions until you look at the fine
print.
A
few week ago China was to ban all imports
of US poultry and egg products after detecting
a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)
strain in backyard poultry and wild birds
in the Pacific Northwest.
Not
surprisingly, it was the Americans' turn
to moan about the unfairness of it all.
"There's absolutely no justification
for China to take such a drastic action,"
said president of the USA Poultry &
Egg Export Council (USA PEEC) Jim Sumner.
"In fact, these isolated and remote
incidents are hundreds if not thousands
of miles away from major poultry and egg
production areas."
Americans
like to point to the equanimity achieved
at US-China Joint Commission on Commerce
and Trade (JCCT) in December with Commerce
Secretary Penny Pritzker declaring how the
two ides sought to "re-imagine"
the JCCT this year, "to engage businesses
from both countries in a dialogue about
how to strengthen the trade and investment
relationship between the world's two largest
economies."
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