|
|
China to safeguard its interests with WTO rules |
 |
+ |
- |
16:06, August 10, 2009 |
Less trade but more disputes in crisis? - Special
China recently requested the World Trade Organization (WTO) to establish an expert panel to investigate the validity of US measures relating to the long pending case of a US ban on Chinese poultry imports. On the same day, China formally launched WTO dispute settlement procedures against the EU's imposition of anti-dumping duties on Chinese-made steel fasteners. Facing various types of protectionism, China is actively safeguarding its interests with WTO rules.
China has been a world trade power for years and the remarkable achievements have pushed the country to the front of international trade disputes. According to WTO statistics, China has been subject to the most anti-dumping investigations for 14 consecutive years, and meanwhile the most countervailing investigations for 3 consecutive years among all WTO member countries by the end of 2008. Since the beginning of 2009, trade friction China has suffered continued to increase.
According to statistics from Ministry of Commerce, between January and April 2009, a total of 13 countries and regions launched 38 investigations against China, including anti-dumping and countervailing cases, safeguard measures and special safeguard investigations. The number of cases increased by 26.7 percent year-on-year. Such situation called for the early solution to the trade disputes.
Compared to those trade wars that both sides suffered, it is preferable to solve issues under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO were established for this purpose. One of the reasons behind China's WTO accession is to better protect China's trade interests with the help of the WTO's multilateral rules and avoid its trade partners from demanding whatever they want from China by exercising their domestic laws in trade disputes. At present, China is utilizing its talents and accumulated experience to safeguard its interests by applying WTO rules more actively and voluntarily.
It is normal that economic and trade interests collide. Resorting to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism will not affect further development of equal and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and its trade partners. Such an approach is adopted not only to solve current disputes, but also to hopefully deter the internal forces of protectionism between trade partners and restrict their moral risks, so as to reduce the probability of future disputes.
As a WTO member, China is willing to accept the restrictions of the current WTO rules on the basis of equal rights and duties and actively safeguard its trade interests by applying the current rules. However, it does not mean China accepts that all the current international economic and trade rules are reasonable. The current rules have a dual characteristic; on one hand, they are able to reflect the objective demands of economic and social development, on the other hand, they can only play a partially and temporarily positive role.
Moreover, some rules only reflect the demands of some developed countries, and even only those of certain interest groups within these nations. Apparently, these rules have negative impact on the economic and social development of developing countries. Therefore, all developing countries should continue to promote international economic and trade rules that will go in line with the interests of most member countries while actively exercising their legal rights.
By People's Daily Online
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2009-08/10/content_316601.htm
|
|
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article