An article of today's People's Daily comments on the protests against globalization process in Hong Kong where the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization is held.

Protesters including farmers from the Republic of Korea, Japan, Indonesia and India gather outside the venue of the Sixth Ministerial Conference of WTO (MC6) in Hong Kong, claiming that their interests have been damaged or even victimized in the process of the economic globalization.

It is undeniable on one hand that the economic globalization is indeed an irreversible trend of today's world. It is also widely believed on the other that the free trade oriented economic globalization will bring a better life.

International economic research institutes have proved in their reports that the world economy would have been at least 10 percent smaller than it is today should there had been no such process in the past 60 years.

That has justified people's efforts on moving the free trade forward.

However, free trade is still a dream to be realized although the integration progresses ahead day by day in the world economy. In the mean time, some groups have suffered from jeopardized interests and even been marginalized in the community. The adverse impact of that cannot be neglected.

The outcry of protesters in Hong Kong was also heard in Doha, in Cancun, and in Seattle. Of course the outcry does not represent the future-sake vision, or bring any possibility of a reverse in the globalization.

However, the voice, no matter how weak it sounds, represents a kind of resistance of the disadvantaged against the unfairness brought about by the process of globalization. And that voice can help improve the process in running toward a fairer and better-justified road.

Globalization is an inevitable choice to the world economy. However, it is subject to discussion on how to help people go through the integration more smoothly.

"More broadly, we need to remember that the developed countries provide their own farmers three times as much assistance as they give in total aid to the entire developing world. Countries sitting at the negotiating table must look beyond their own vested interests. And remember, that if Doha fails, it's the world's poor, those 1.2 billion people who are not present in Hong Kong, who will suffer the most. We must not let the interests of a few drown out the concerns and needs of the many," said Dany Leipziger, Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, World Bank, who is head of World Bank delegation for the MC6 in Hong Kong.

By People's Daily Online