Those protagonists who still argue that freeing world trade will lift at least 20 million of the poorest people in the world's poorest nations out of wretched poverty needn't bask in the sun just yet: the last-minute deal 'clinched' at the World Trade Organisation's summit in Hong Kong turned out to be another no-brainer. No-brainer because it has been clear to cynics like me that not one politico-economic region would be willing to budge a millimetre on freeing up world trade, because that would mean freeing up the most highly-prized, and therefore state protected, sectors of a national economy. And to free these up, to any degree, would amount to political suicide for any government. The battle of Seattle in 1999 was repeated in Hong Kong's streets, and that says a lot.

For one thing, it explains why the world got what it did. It wasn't a deal that was clinched but one that was hatched politically to save the face of trade ministers as much as the wimp-ish world trade body both of whom decided, apparently, to end farm export subsidies not by 2010 because Europe vehemently refused to accept that deadline but by 2013. Even so, this is not a 'victory' by halves. In fact it's not a win in any sense. Australia's Trade Minister Mark Vaile needn't gloat otherwise. Vaile says Hong Kong didn't turn out to be the Cancun farce in 2003. Vaile is pitiable, but what's a politician to say? Bottom-line is, Hong Kong is as farcical as Cancun, as Doha in 2001, as Seattle in 1999, and as Singapore in 1996.

And here's the thing: the Doha round of trade liberalisation is just about dead. The WTO might as well change its name to World Trade Obstructionism. Because since its inception in 1996 after the continuous failure of its predecessor, the Uruguay rounds, the WTO is littered with trade ministers, of all political ilk, whose sole consensual agenda has been to hold the old ground, hold the old line, hold the old agenda, talk how wonderful globalisation is if it suits their national interests but don't talk how wonderful freeing up world trade might be if it doesn't suit their national interests. And the Hong Kong talks of freeing up world trade did not suit their national interests this time around, like at any other time.

The Doha round was targeted specifically at boosting trade liberalisation, which in turn would arguably improve the national incomes of developing economies. Third World governments then would be solely responsible for producing policies to ensure equitable income distribution to lift the poor out of their daily grinding misery. But just as developing countries have failed to fulfil their socio-political and economic responsibilities and moral obligations, so too has the WTO failed to muscle in changes required to do the good deed. To be fair though, the WTO merely exists to facilitate freer trade; convincing its members to commit to that ideal is a whole different matter.

Cronies hold court

The WTO has failed at every turn, and miserably, at every summit since 1996 because the WTO's150 member nations that attend these talk-fests do so only to defend their national interests first, including - but especially - big business's. The farm lobbies in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia are hugely influential. So is the farm lobby in South America and, increasingly, Asia. And all governments know their political survival depends on the political patronage of this sector too. Ask Mark Vaile, who heads up the National Party, whose chief constituency is rural Australia.

The WTO has until end April 2006 to lay the ground rules for freeing up farm trade, but don't hold your breath. It's not just agriculture that needs focusing as manufacturing and services are two more sectors that received massive back-downs since Singapore. Not a single Third World state would give ground to the First World on labour standards then; nothing has since changed. Imagine China backing down again on lifting the value of its Yuan, or increasing wages for the pittance it pays its massive revolving-door labour force. It's not going to happen because that is its key comparative advantage.

Every country knows 'beggar-thy-neighbour' policies have ruled the world trade roost until now. Every country knows that they need to be maintained if the national economy isn't to sink by force of rising global competition especially those led by sectors that receive enormous state protection and subsidies. The state's business cronies hold court and politicians do what cronies want. These are the rorts. These are the realities. It's why the WTO is doomed, if not for the next three or four years, then perhaps forever like Uruguay.

But the developing world needn't be sanctimonious and blame the Europeans and Americans as the main culprits of these rorts. They themselves are worse. Here's India's self-serving policy position, and an utterly ridiculous one: that the WTO's rules on intellectual property be revised so law on industrial property will recognise the social values of pre-industrial society. It's humbug at its best, and a twisted logic. More, corruption is so in-bred in the developing world, in every state. Take Malaysia's besieged trade minister Rafidah Aziz who, having distanced herself from ex-mentor and prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, is still to come clean on giving carte blanche car-import licences to her relatives.

Free market savagery

Good governance is a comic story in the Third World. Few if any of the developing countries' policies are transparent. State business contract tendering processes are about as dodgy as their so-called economic reforms, viz. privatisation policies. Look at Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and India. If the Hong Kong WTO summit is yet another betrayal of the aspirations of the world's poorest people, it is an even bigger betrayal by these people's own governments. Not that a single politician will ever have the pluck to admit this, with more spin and double-speak being their only vocal chords.

Worst thing is, the Doha round is at the end of its five-year process and all that the Hong Kong summit has done is merely widen differences between developed and developing states and deepen and harden their positions. But these positions were already solidified even before the first delegates arrived in Hong Kong. World trade, via the auspices of the likes of the WTO, or for that matter Apec, Asean and the G20, has taken a disturbingly backward step. But no-one should resile from condemning the actions of all 150 member nations of the WTO as gutless adventurism for having yet again sold out their poorest citizens.

Not that there are sound guarantees that freer trade will lift entrenched poverty. Free trade isn't the Holy Grail. It never was. In fact there's enough evidence to suggest free markets pit the strong against the weak, and the weak always lose because governments won't protect them from the savagery of free markets. Governments will only protect big businesses. This doesn't only happen in the developing world; it also happens, increasingly, in the developed world.

Look at America, the bastion of free market capitalism - after Ronald Reagan's neoliberal adventurism. Unskilled American workers have lost all protection from the state against global capitalism. Industry in middle America has hollowed out. Unskilled and low-skilled American workers are paid about US$6 an hour for a day's slog. That's no better than the fifty cents daily paid to Chinese or Indonesian workers in international conglomerates. But that is what big business wants, and that is what ruling politicians are obliged to provide. This is what happened at the WTO in Hong Kong same as at any other venue so far in its miserable history.

MANJIT BHATIA, an academician and writer, is also research director of AsiaRisk, a political, economic and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. He specialises in international economics and politics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.