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Some Thoughts on the JADE Act
On July 28, 2003, President George Bush signed into law the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003. This act bans the importation of any article that is produced, mined, grown, manufactured or assembled in Burma. This included precious stones, teak and the transmission of natural gas. This law made it impossible for gem dealers (like me) to function in Burma or attend Burmese auctions, even though that rarely happened. The finest goods have, for thirty years, been smuggled out of Burma by opposition groups to the ruling, oppressive military junta and made their way to secondary markets in China, Thailand and elsewhere. There they were cut, polished and processed and that is where I source most of my inventory. And, in fact, small merchants and dealers make their living by shipping stones out of Burma, in defiance of the ruling military. Some of the profits derived from this trade fuel groups opposed to the ruling Junta as well as help to support monasteries in Burma. International law has always carried the provision that ‘substantial transformation’ of an item in another country no longer made the item a product of the originating country. It is this observation that allowed Belgium to supply the U.S. (and the rest of the world) with diamonds from places under international embargo, such as South Africa. And it is this observation that allows many countries today to cut and polish diamonds and sell them in the U.S. while we are asked to boycott diamonds from several poor African countries because of human rights violations (blood diamonds.) The diamond business is flourishing today and there is no movement afoot to curtail the concept of ‘substantial transformation’ where diamonds are concerned. After all, diamonds are big business. In December, 2007, after a bloody crackdown on monks and monasteries opposed to the anti-democratic and repressive policies of the generals in power, the U.S. Senate and House both passed the ‘Tom Lantos JADE Act’, which did away with the ‘substantial transformation’ provision for products of Burma. That meant that all gemstones (peridot, spinel, sapphires, rubies and jade), and all forest products, in particular, teak, a huge export for Burma, were banned. Most prominently, the $500 million dollar natural gas pipeline that Chevron would be operating in Burma would no longer be allowed. It didn’t matter where you bought these products or what manufacturing processes they had undergone elsewhere; if the underlying item originated from Burma, it was taboo in the U.S. However, the law that actually left conference committee and was ratified by both houses and signed into law on July 28, 2008, is NOT the act proposed in December, 2007. Things have changed. The Chevron pipeline (from which the Junta derives $100 million annually) is just fine. Teak? No problem; keep cutting those trees down. And spinel, peridot, sapphires? They, too, are OK. Only jade and rubies, the smallest revenue producers of all for the Burmese Junta, are banned! After all, jade in the U.S. represents less than one tenth of one percent of the jewelry market. Jade mainly goes from Burma to China, and China will certainly not stop buying it. Rubies, although prominent in Burma, can be mined in Sri Lanka or Madagascar or many other places. Will this law really affect anything at all? The 2008 JADE Act actually does less harm to the military junta than the 2003 law it replaces. Because of all the items that were banned in 2003 and are now exempt from embargo, I would submit that the new law is weaker and less symbolic of our resolve to bring down a government of tyrants. I am in the jade business. There is no lobbyist putting forth my interests, and the new form of the Burmese embargo really demonstrates, to me, how our system works, or rather, doesn’t work. Why are we allowing the concept of ‘substantial transformation’ to permit ‘blood’ diamonds? Because American jewelers sell a lot of diamonds and they have political clout. Why is Chevron free to line the pockets of the junta? Well, it’s Chevron, a big and influential business. The stated purpose of the JADE Act is to punish the repressive Burmese regime for its crackdown on the demonstrating monks, for the continued detention of Au Sang Suu Kyi, and its disregard for human rights. Someone should mention that China has closed more monasteries in Tibet than the Burmese, and killed three times the number of people in the process as perished in the recent demonstrations in Burma. The Dalai Lama, who is not allowed to return to his homeland by the Chinese government, has publicly decried the suspension of human rights in Tibet for many years, particularly before the Chinese Olympics. Do you see an anti-Chinese embargo on the horizon? I don’t think Walmart would allow it. The asymmetry of this act is disturbing. The JADE Act is an arrow into the heart of my business. Nine jobs in Colorado might soon be lost. Will the triviality of banning jade and rubies really bring the Junta down? I don’t think they will even notice. As to the monks themselves, they will suffer even more under this embargo because much of their support comes from small gem merchants who regularly donate alms to their monasteries, and these are the very ones most affected by the new law. Don Kay The Jade Room Back to News List |