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China accuses US of abusing global trade regulations

China Friday accused the US of having excessively protectionist trade policies and said Wash-ington was failing to conform to the spirit and agreements of the WTO.

The criticisms are contained in China's first ever report, commissioned by the Ministry of Commerce, assessing US trade policy.

Its publication in the China Daily yesterday comes a day after Washington threatened to use take action at the WTO against China for allegedly not complying with global trade rules and adopting discriminatory tax policies.

"Amid a sluggish economy and the growing trade deficit, protectionist tendencies have clearly got stronger in US trade policies, while its enthusiasm to solve disputes multilaterally has clearly waned," said the report.

It cited safeguard measures for the steel industry, as well as a new agricultural subsidy act, as having "abused and breached WTO rules."

"The United States has stepped up trade protection in domestic legislation by taking advantage of opaque WTO rules in some aspects. The problem has concerned many WTO members but remains unresolved," the report said.

The US has imposed a raft of trade restrictions against China in recent months and regularly complains about Beijing not fully implementing its commitments since it joined the WTO in 2001.

US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick rammed the point home again Thursday, saying that while some of the compliance problems faced by China were initially viewed as "growing pains," Beijing must do more to ensure it lives up to its obligations in the global trade body.

"Without more progress on matters we have been pressing with China, we will certainly need to avail ourselves of our rights under the WTO," he warned in testimony before the House of Representatives.

Zoellick also warned that the US would use "special safeguards," such as anti-dumping provisions, on textiles from China if Beijing fell short in its trade commitments.

In the China Daily report, China said US anti-dumping provisions "often contradict the principle of objectiveness and fairness."

According to the China-US agreement on China's accession to the WTO, the US can treat China as a non-market economy for 15 years but China argued that this was no longer relevant.

"Although China's market system remains less mature than the United States, it has already outpaced many countries deemed by the United States as `market economies' in terms of size, order and market potential," the report said.

"Under these circumstances, labelling China a non-market economy will inevitably make China suffer unfair treatment and is against the WTO's principle of fair play," it said.

Last year, senior US officials met frequently with their Chinese counterparts to address alleged shortcomings in China's WTO compliance and had urged them to increase market openness.

As a result, China took steps to address tariff problems and other market constraints faced by US commodities and reduced capitalization requirements for US financial services.
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