U.S.-China Friction Undercuts Efforts to Settle Trade Disputes

"WASHINGTON -- Rising tensions between the U.S. and China are hampering efforts by members of the World Trade Organization to repair its ability to settle international trade disputes.

 

China's entry into the WTO 20 years ago this month came with expectations that Beijing gradually would adopt Western free-trade practices. But rather than integrating China into the global-trading system, the WTO is accused of allowing Beijing to flood the market with cheap, subsidized products.

 

With the deepening division among its members, the group has struggled to enforce existing rules, let alone update them to reflect the changes in the world economy in recent decades.

 

The U.S. has accused China of failing to abide by its commitments, including not protecting intellectual property and dumping cheap steel on the global market, claims that Beijing has denied.

 

In a recent sign of the frictions spilling into the WTO's dispute-settlement function, the U.S. has since 2019 blocked new appointments to its seven-judge Appellate Body that reviews trade disputes. It is the group's central function, designed to deliver final judgments in trade disputes among the 164 WTO members.

The U.S. says it acted because the court has a history of overreach, although many of its specific complaints relate to its disputes with China.

Countries including Australia and Mexico are pressing the U.S. to lift its freeze, and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has said the U.S. has started dialogue with some members. But both the U.S. and China complain that the other side has failed to change its practices.

"We secured victories in every case that was decided, but many of them were hollow," David Bisbee, the U.S.'s representative at the WTO in Geneva said as the WTO issued a review of China's trade policy. He was referring to the cases the U.S. has filed against China over the years. "Even when China changed the specific practices that we had challenged, China often did not change the underlying policies, and meaningful reforms by China remained elusive."

China has said the U.S. hasn't implemented agreed-upon changes in cases involving the U.S.'s use of antidumping duties on Chinese products.

Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said that China has pursued "all-round opening up" of its economy and stepped up to its responsibilities as a WTO member over the past 20 years." [1]

 

There are a number of people in the West who get rich from the trade in cheap, subsidized and based on stolen intellectual property Chinese goods. But many voters have realized that those politicians who allow China and traders of its goods to run this show should take a break from politics. As a result, politicians in many countries, including the United States, are wary of this. That is why WTO affairs are stalling. 

 

1. World News: U.S.-China Friction Undercuts Efforts to Settle Trade Disputes
Hayashi, Yuka. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 11 Dec 2021: A.11.