G8 Summit Power Brokers, Scottish Tartans, And All Those Chinese Goats

by Sanjay Suri

(IPS) -- When Scots choose to make a statement, a tartan is usually right up front, along with whisky.

But there is something about the tartan at the G8 summit this year that presents a picture of globalization that Scotland, or Britain which it is a part of, never intended.

A tartan is on the face of it just a Scottish wool fabric woven in a pattern of checks and straight lines that becomes particular to an organization or event. Inevitably, a tartan has been designed to put a Scottish stamp on the G8 summit.

Neckties, scarves and so on in that particular pattern of lines over a blue base will become the official logo at the G8 summit to be held in Gleneagles in Scotland July 6-8.

The chief inspiration behind the G8 tartan is the Edinburgh firm Todd & Duncan, celebrated manufacturers of the cashmere yarn that goes into the making of a true tartan. The firm is a Scottish triumph, but also sees a Chinese threat.

That threat comes by way of goats, and who can get the most out of them. Get the cashmere from them, that is. The source is China, even if the name is like Kashmir.

"There must have been some connection between cashmere and Kashmir," Neville Barnes from Todd & Duncan told IPS. "Some goats may have wandered over from Kashmir into China once."

The goats were never to suspect that their migration could prove historic. Because it is the underbelly of these goats found in northern China around Mongolia that produces the fine wool used for cashmere. "It takes wool from three goats to produce a cashmere pullover," said Barnes. Which is one reason cashmere is so expensive.

Scotland has plenty of sheep of its own, with enough wool on them. "But it rains too much here, and their wool gets very coarse," said Barnes. "You need the dry cold of China for that fine cashmere wool."

So China then, has the natural resource. And the Scots have the brand name on the strength of that resource. That is the way it has been for long, with resources from the East feeding brand names from the West. The West has traditionally added the value and kept the profits.

But for how long? The Chinese have a florishing textiles industry, as the West knows too well. It may not be long before they match their goats with their industry to produce cashmere that matches anything Scotland can do.

The Chinese get very little out of cashmere compared to a firm like Todd & Duncan. Chinese skills in this business are confined to catching a goat and flipping it over to get at the wool on the underbelly, after cleaning away what one would expect to find in those parts. Todd & Duncan turns that into yarn that it then supplies to manufacturers of cashmere garments in Italy and France, and to leading design houses around the world.

"Of course the Chinese can do this too, they have the technology," said Barnes. What Todd & Duncan has, and the Chinese do not, "is a choice of 16,000 colors," said Barnes. "We are prepared to make any color the customer wants."

And what Todd & Duncan, and other Scottish firms have is their name and reputation, and that association of cashmere with Scotland. Chinese textiles will do for the lower and even middling market. But at those exclusive stores where they sell cashmere, it is those Italian designs made from Scottish cashmere that will sell. What would they say at that dinner party if they caught you in cashmere made in China?

The Chinese are not there yet, and they do not look like they will be for a while. In the immediate future at least the world will still see cashmere from Scotland.

But the Chinese could be coming, said Barnes. "We are not resting on our success, we are not taking anything for granted," he said. "We beat the Chinese on color and quality, Scottish cashmere is recognized as the best. But we are not assuming anything ten years from now."

Those doubts will give unintended meaning to the tartan that Todd & Duncan sponsored for the G8 summit. Those red-and-black lines on blue in the G8 tartan will be held up as the emblem of the meeting of heads of government of the world's richest countries. But look behind those colors and you see the Chinese colossus emerging.