The Sixth Ministerial Conference of World Trade Organization (WTO) is held in Hong Kong December 13. Whether the first round of multilateral trade negotiations since the founding of the WTO - the Doha round can journey around elevations and winding roads to resume its course, or stall in front of passes and mountains will, to a large extent, depend on the result of this meeting.

Contrary to the expectations of proponents of multilateral trade liberalization, an ominous shadow was cast over the crucial meeting even before it begins- wrestling over trade of agricultural products among concerned partied has not reached agreement while anti-WTO protestors from various parts of the world have held their first demonstration in Hong Kong Dec. 11 afternoon. Because of this many are pessimistic about the result of the HK meeting.

Truth be told, all changes of trade rules imply adjustment of the cost-return distribution pattern and interest tradeoff for the concerned parties. For a global multilateral trade organization like the WTO, which covers most countries in the world, such-and-such differences are little surprises. The key, however, is for each WTO member to push forward with the trade liberalization based on balanced distribution of returns and burdens, so as to satisfy the twofold goal of maximizing trade liberalization benefits and minimizing resistance.

Balanced distribution of returns and burdens includes the balance between developed countries and developing countries as well as among various orders within a country. Between the two the former is more crucial. After all, as the Doha Ministerial Declaration, which decided to launch the Doha round of negotiations, points out, "The majority of WTO members are developing countries. We seek to place their needs and interests at the heart of the Work Programme adopted in this Declaration." "We shall continue to make positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries, and especially the least-developed among them, secure a share in the growth of world trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development." It is because the principles and topics set for negotiations embody clear tone of "development orientation" that the Doha round is also referred to as the "development round".

A review over a longer historical span and against broader space-time backdrop will show that the balanced distribution of returns and burdens and persisting in "development orientation" are of great significance to maintaining the sustainable development of economic globalization.

Since the 1990s the greatest problem arising from the economic globalization is the imbalance of return-burden distribution, with the developing countries gaining little from the globalization and bearing too much adjustment burden. The rules and regulations of the two pillar organizations of the economic globalization - the WTO and IMF, per se have problems in this regard, not to mention the problems arising from the implementations of them. Any "development" fruits must be able to be shared by as many social members as possible. The same holds true for a countries as well as the international community. If the reasonable demands of developing countries to seek development are treated lightly, it is not entirely impossible that the globalization process may reverse to the detriment of both the South and the North.

To realize abovementioned goals decision makers in developed countries need to show their determination to overcome the handicap of narrow-minded group interests while developing countries need to show collective will to safeguard their reasonable rights and interests. In the meantime, as the world third largest trader whose economy has been embedded in the international economic system, as a country whose export market and import sources are distributed worldwide and as the largest developing country that has an imbalanced economic development, China's interests determine that it should play an active role in bridging the developed and developing countries and push ahead the sound and stable progress of this multilateral freed trade system. We place our expectations on the participating parties for the final results.

The article by Mei Xinyu is carried on the front page of People's Daily Overseas Edition on Dec.13 and translated by People's Daily Online