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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, May 6, 2001

The bank that doesn't get enough credit

By Thomas Plate
A columnist with The Honolulu Advertiser and the South China Morning Post and a professor in communication studies and policy studies at UCLA

The World Bank hardly wants for enemies these days.

 •  The full text of the Wolfensohn interview is at www.asiamedia.ucla.edu.
There have been plenty of them in the streets, from Seattle to Melbourne to Quebec. Protesters generally regard this international institution — not to mention the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Economic Forum, the Asian Development Bank and so on — as little more than corporate-front cheerleaders for greedy globalization.

The drama continues: This week Hawai'i hosts the 34th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, a World Bank sister institution. Such luminaries as U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill plan to attend.

If Honolulu manages to get through the event without serious incident, it will have the distinction of being the first city since December 1999 — when all hell broke loose in Seattle — to pull something like this off.

But institutions like the World Bank have enemies not only in the streets but also in the halls of Congress, which hates to appropriate money and quarrel with the mission. Even the corridors of the World Bank's own Washington offices are rife with staffers' grumbles about President James Wolfensohn's arrogant style.

But is it so much arrogance as an in-your-face recognition of the bank's role in an ever-shrinking world?

"Washington and the rest of the world cannot ignore the work we do,'' the Australian-born former investment banker barked in a recent exclusive interview. "However much you like us or don't like us, at this moment in world history, you should say, 'Thank God you have a place like this.' "

It was classic Wolfensohnianism. He'll also tell you that the World Bank is blamed for problems not its fault.

"Take a country like Korea," he said. "You cannot change a country from outside. You can't take a stick and wave it, and change a culture."

Indeed, long-established societies always tend to resist change. "They have to be convinced that if they don't make (economic) reforms, they can't become a modern state," he says. "So the limitations of the World Bank are the limitations of the governments that the World Bank works with."

There are some unpleasant jobs that only international organizations will take on. One example is the uphill fight against AIDS in Africa, in which the World Bank is a leader; another is devising anti-poverty programs in places many Americans have barely heard of, from Mauritius to Yemen; or being ready to help catch crumbling states, such as North Korea.

Who else would want those jobs? "That is exactly what we do," shouts Wolfensohn. "Put us into a situation like that, and we are a trained dog and we'll go to it.''

Global institutions offer the international community a modicum of commitment and policy sophistication that's essential in a crisis. For all their aloofness, they operate on a plane of analysis that many protesters ought to welcome rather than dismiss.

A world-class operator like Wolfensohn gets into trouble in places like Congress precisely because he doesn't have to toe any party line and can offer independent perspectives on U.S. policy. Though the Bush administration may chill toward China, he rather likes what he sees developing there and isn't shy about saying so:

"(The Chinese are) doing pretty well in trying to deal with the central issues of financial stability. And they're doing pretty well with issues of governance, too. In some reform areas, they are actually doing things meticulously. I am deeply impressed.''

But what about human rights and Tibet, and other issues that so rankle Americans?

"They run their country differently from democratic India, which is why they sometimes get in trouble with America," he states. "The movement to democracy is no magic wand."

And so this outspoken internationalist, like his counterparts in Washington and elsewhere, will be monitoring the Asian Development Bank conference with interest, as will Honolulu's police, hardly ignorant of recent history.

"If the protests go on too long, there will be a real revulsion," says Wolfensohn, who is no fan of violent protesters but eager to work with non-governmental organizations that prefer reason to rioting.

"It's one thing to have a private dialogue. But the conversion into the streets — that makes it very difficult. When you have to watch your head, that's when I have a problem. We have to get away from this lunacy."

Maybe Honolulu will prove to be the exception.