The WTO will discuss whether China has been observing the commitments it made when it joined the trade body -- perhaps including its refusal to deal with Taiwan -- at the end of the year, a Geneva-based trade official said.
The meeting of the WTO's transitional review board, which examines new members' implementation of market-opening commitments, will be held in December, the official, who did not want to be identified, said.
The board will probably discuss China's role in trade disputes with Japan over photographic film exports and with the US over fertilizer, the official said.
China's investigation into alleged dumping of cold-rolled steel and PVC products by Taiwanese exporters could also be tabled, the official said.
However, no country has requested that a trade issue involving China be taken before the dispute settlement board, which is authorized to take punitive action against members found breaking the rules.
Taiwan's government has publicly complained that China has refused to communicate under the WTO framework on the steel dumping investigation. Beijing has instead dealt directly with the steel exporters.
However, Yen Ching-chang (顏慶章), Taiwan's representative to the WTO, said on Tuesday that Beijing's attitude towards dealing with Taipei could be shifting.
"We twice wrote to the mainland mission reminding it that as a WTO member, it is obliged to inform the Taipei mission of its anti-dumping investigations. The mainland mission finally served us a notice in late July," Yen told journalists in Geneva.
Earlier this month, Beijing's WTO mission directly informed the Taipei mission of its decision to investigate possible dumping of ethanol from Taiwan and several other countries, Yen said.
"This marked a subtle change in cross-strait interaction under the WTO framework," he said.
Despite this apparent change in policy by Beijing, Yen said the Chinese mission purposely refrained from using the WTO's official language, English, in its notices to the Taipei mission.
"Instead, it used Chinese in its two letters to us. But anyway, this marked an important step forward in cross-strait exchanges," he added.
Commenting on China's stance that it would not negotiate with Taiwan under the WTO framework unless Taipei accepted its "one China" principle, Yen said this would not affect Taiwan's attempted dealings with its giant neighbor.
Yen said Taiwan has assured the WTO secretary-general and all other WTO members that it will strictly abide by all WTO rules and will not make any exceptions for China.
"Our stance has received unanimous recognition in the WTO," he said.
The Geneva-based trade official said that all parties in the trade body hoped that politics could be shelved in favor of trade issues in relations between the two sides.
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