Revising European Safeguards and Antidumping Provisions in Light of the Chinese WTO Accession
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In November 2001, the WTO members allowed the People's Republic of China, a formerly
planned economy that is going through different stages of domestic economic and related legal
restructuring, to accede to the WTO. This accession is believed to be necessary for the WTO to
become a truly international organisation in the post-Cold War era, along side of the IMF and the
World Bank, and for China to become an integrated member of the international economic
community. Although the end of the Cold War has changed European trade policy profoundly,
the European Community (EC)" has maintained a traditionally bifurcated trade policy, in which
planned economies, also referred to as "non-market economies", are given treatment different
from market economies in trade policy instruments, such as the EC emergency safeguards
provisions and EC anti-dumping regulation.
The EC perceives the Chinese domestic legal and economic reforms as unfinished; and, although
the treatment of Chinese products under the EC import and anti-dumping regulations has been
liberalised in recent years, China is still generally considered to be a non-market economy. It is
questionable whether in light of China's WTO accession such a non-market approach vis-ä-vis
China, as approved in the Chinese Protocol of Accession, is justified. This thesis argues that the
non-market approach for China, as it stands today, should be adjusted for two basic reasons. First,
this approach does not allow China to benefit fully from its WTO accession for a number of years
to come. Second, as long as the period allowing non-market economy treatment continues, the
danger exists that the non-market economy trade policy, especially as far as anti-dumping is
concerned, may tend to be abused for protectionist purposes by the EC.
Protectionist abuse would be harmful for China because its export-oriented growth is necessary to
advance the country's domestic legal and economic reforms. Protectionism, equally, would be
harmful for the EC because it prevents the Community industry from adjusting itself to face the
challenge of increased Chinese competition. Because there is no satisfactory methodological
solution to deal with the new variant of non-market economies, and because it is impossible for
China - despite all good intentions - to implement fully the WTO accession requirements by the
time they must phase in, the suggested approach is for the EC to show restraint in employing
these trade policy instruments against China. As far as emergency safeguards are concerned, this
restraint is already a fact. Nonetheless, some holdovers from the Cold War should be put up for
change. Such adjustments will also be required for the EC anti-dumping regulation.
Authors
Hoogmartens, JanCollections
- Theses [3834]