From "Dancing With Wolves" To "Dancing With Dragons"

On November 20, 2001, Michael Moore, director general of WTO, wrote to WTO members, announcing that the Chinese government accepted the protocol on China's accession to the WTO in November 11, 2001, and that the protocol will come into effect in December 11th. This means that our country formally joins the World Trade Organization (WTO) and becomes its 143rd member country.

Joining WTO marks China's industry Opening to the outside world has entered a completely new stage. So, what has China gained in the ten years since its accession to the WTO? What has inspired China's economic development in the ten years since its accession to the WTO? Is the economic globalization challenged under the background of the global financial crisis spreading? How will China respond to the current growing protectionism?

With these questions, the reporter interviewed the Ministry of Commerce on international trade and economic cooperation. research institute Researcher Mei Xinyu, vice president and chief economist of Minsheng securities and Teng Tai, director of the world economy and international trade department of Northwestern University, and Zhao Jingfeng, a doctoral supervisor.

China's accession to the WTO for ten years and its Trade Partners take a win-win road

Securities Times reporter: at present, can China's accession to the WTO be confirmed as a correct choice?

Tengtai: joining the WTO is an important step for China's opening to the outside world. Since then, China's economy has been deeply integrated into the world, and its role in the international division of labor has become more and more important, and has become a big exporter of manufacturing industry. It has made important contributions to solve the domestic employment and export problems. In the process of opening to the outside world, "three funded enterprises" also played an important role in promoting China's economic development, and many advanced technologies were introduced to China.

It is beyond doubt that China's accession to the WTO is correct. However, WTO has imposed many harsh conditions on various countries, and China is also forced to make concessions and concessions. In many respects, it is still subject to Europe and the United States. For example, it still does not recognize China's market economy status. China's Countervailing and anti-dumping measures have not stopped so far, and China has not received fair treatment in many respects.

Mei Xin Yu: joining the WTO is the objective need and long-term pursuit of China's economic development. On the whole, it can be judged that China and its trading partners have been on the road of win-win since China's accession to the WTO for ten years. For China, accession to WTO means that China has won a broader development environment for foreign trade and economic cooperation, thereby promoting China's foreign trade and economic development. Between 2000 and 2008, world exports grew by an average annual growth rate of 12%, and China's exports grew by an average annual growth rate of 24.4%, which is more than two times the world's average export growth. More large-scale exports and higher export growth mean that the export sector has created more employment opportunities for Chinese nationals, which means that China's industry has won greater scale benefits and more high growth opportunities.

At the same time, the huge expansion of trade will enhance China's position in the international market and lay a solid foundation for China to gradually gain more negotiation power in the world trade system. Winning stronger bargaining power means that China is more and more capable of surpassing this passive "international practice" and pushing forward the establishment of more fair and reasonable trade rules that are more in line with our expectations, so as to accelerate the improvement of China's position in the distribution pattern of international economic and trade interests. We have begun to see this trend in the Doha Round negotiations.

Zhao Jingfeng: joining the WTO is one of the most important initiatives of China's opening to the outside world. It is also one of the important signs recognized by the international community in the world economic system. Starting from 2001, China's economic development has gone through 10 years of rapid progress and has made remarkable achievements. This is mainly manifested in the following seven aspects.

First, the total volume of import and export trade has increased substantially, laying the scale foundation for the long-term development and structural adjustment of the foreign economy. Second, it has accumulated huge foreign exchange reserves, thus promoting the internationalization of RMB and improving its position in the world capital market. Third, it has greatly promoted the improvement of China's strategic industrial competitiveness. Fourth, the situation of "you have me, I have you" is conducive to the development of China's economic diplomacy. Fifth, directly improving people's living standards and happiness. Sixth, it has promoted the transformation of government functions and the establishment of modern enterprise system. Seventh, under the framework of the WTO multilateral trading system, China ASEAN Free Trade Area has been successfully joined, and regional economic integration and economic globalization have been promoted simultaneously.

However, under these achievements, there are still some problems, including: first, the increase in trade friction has caused some unnecessary losses to enterprises. Second, foreign economic development is not compatible with China's population structure. The gradual disappearance of demographic dividend has made China's demand for export structure more urgent. Third, the development of service trade and goods trade is not balanced, and the comparative advantage of service industry has not been brought into full play. Fourth, huge foreign exchange reserves have caused some problems for China's indirect investment. The devaluation of the US dollar and the sovereign debt crisis of the developed countries bring greater risks to China. Fifth, the import of high-tech products in developed countries is too low, and the ban on China is still widespread in many fields. Sixth, individual industries are controlled by the giants of the international industry and cause certain industrial security risks to our country.

In general, China's income in WTO is far greater than lost. To solve the existing problems, we also rely on the good foundation that has been laid. For example, the premise of changing the growth mode of foreign trade is to have enough trade scale and a good international economic environment.

China's strategy of opening to the outside world should be adjusted.

Securities Times reporter: in the past ten years, China and the world economy have made considerable progress. What is the inspiration for China's economic development after joining the WTO? What lessons and lessons learned from China?

Teng Tai: after China's accession to the WTO, China's strategy of opening to the outside world has not been adjusted. At the beginning of China's opening to the outside world, the policy of encouraging exports, attracting foreign capital and stabilizing foreign exchange was implemented. However, in 2005, China's economic situation had undergone great changes. The state subsidized exports for 730 billion yuan a year, and over export formed a shortage of migrant workers, which led to domestic inflation and trade surplus, and brought about the external pressure of international trade protection.

Generally speaking, China's strategy of opening to the outside world should make the following three adjustments: first, after 2005, the "shortage of migrant workers" began to appear in China. At the same time, we should adjust the export to the international balance of payments. By encouraging the export of backward industries to earn foreign exchange and form a favorable balance of trade, this is unfavorable to China's economic development. Two, we should adjust to promote technological progress and industrial upgrading from blindly attracting foreign investment, focusing on quantity instead of quality. In the 90s of last century, the strategy of attracting foreign investment was correct, and played a positive role in the rapid development and technological progress of the southeast coast. However, many local governments regard the actual utilization of foreign capital as an indicator of political performance and pay a heavy price for developing the economy at the expense of environmental pollution. Three, we should adjust the rigid exchange rate policy to a more flexible and flexible exchange rate policy. The RMB exchange rate has not reached the equilibrium exchange rate, resulting in a large number of hot money continuing to flow into China, sometimes reaching 50 billion US dollars per month. The central bank is forced to return to the market, which not only causes economic imbalance, but also affects the stock market.

Zhao Jingfeng: the revelation of China's economic development in the past ten years has been invaluable.

One of the revelations: the take-off of a country's economy must depend on the improvement of its extrovert level, and it must rely on the full range of economic and trade cooperation with other countries. Without the rapid development of foreign trade, foreign investment, foreign investment and cooperation in technology and labor services, the domestic enterprises can not fully enjoy the technological diffusion and spillover effects brought by the world's technological revolution, so that their nationals can not enjoy the benefits brought by the actual income.

Revelation two: a country's foreign trade product structure adjustment is closely related to the adjustment of domestic industrial structure. Therefore, we should adopt a development strategy that is consistent with each other. At present, the important task of our country is to promote the upgrading of products, that is to say, the advancement of factor content, from the labor intensive industry structure to the capital and technology intensive industrial structure.

Revelation three: a country's external economic development is inseparable from the standardization and perfection of its own market order. China's market economy status has not been recognized by many countries, but also partly because of ourselves. Although the national treatment of enterprise competition has basically been achieved, there are still many frictions and contradictions to be resolved. These are contrary to the fundamental principles of China's market economic system, and need to be regulated through legislation.

Revelation four: when a country participates in the international division of labor, it must give full play to its inherent advantages and constantly cultivate new comparative advantages. China's abundant labor resources make China's general manufactured goods have obvious comparative advantages, but in the future, this advantage will be released sooner or later. China needs to actively adapt to changes in factor endowments and cultivate new comparative advantages.

Revelation five: a country's development must take the interests of its own citizens as its fundamental starting point. Any economic development must be based on the maximization of domestic welfare. Trade conditions in individual areas are deteriorating, and environmental intensive industries have not been effectively regulated because of the strong ability to earn foreign exchange. All these phenomena must be taken seriously.

Mei Xin Yu: there is no doubt that China's foreign trade and economic situation is far from satisfactory, with low domestic value-added rate, environmental pollution and labor rights and interests of export enterprises. All these need us to face up to and work hard to solve them. But no matter how much we have to pay for these achievements, China's achievements in foreign trade and economic cooperation are still achievements. We can only seek breakthroughs and upgrading ways on the basis of past achievements, and we should not and should not push them back.

Thinking from a higher level, accession to the WTO is a milestone in China's opening up to the outside world, but there is no need to deny that the development of foreign trade and economic openness will bring a series of shocks and challenges to China's economy and society. We must remain vigilant against this. At the same time, China's economic scale and macroeconomic regulation and control capacity have doubled and expanded over the past ten years, and the second largest economy in the world means that China's ability to defuse external shocks by means of indirect regulation has increased exponentially. As the East Asian financial crisis between 1997 and 1998 and the global financial and economic crisis since 2008 have proved repeatedly, China is no longer a passive receiver of external shocks, but an increasingly active regulator. Of course, we must remain vigilant.

In addition, China's accession to the WTO has provided a broader external market for China's economic development. At the same time, it also inspires China to continuously improve the level of its application of international economic and trade rules, so as to go beyond the "international practice" and "promote the evolution of rules".

China should enhance its leadership in the process of globalization.

Securities Times reporter: actually, the global financial crisis has led many intellectuals to reflect on economic globalization. On the occasion of China's accession to the WTO 10th anniversary and the deepening of the global financial crisis, please talk about this issue.

Mei Xinyu: we must vigorously develop the open economy, but we must grasp the direction and pace of the development of the open economy, and grasp the initiative of the pace adjustment. Opening wider to the outside world is by itself a means rather than a basic purpose. It is the basic purpose to enhance our own interests. Therefore, the open domain, order, time, degree, object, prerequisites, whether it can be reversed and so on must be controlled in our own hands, and we must not be vague in this regard. The reason why we should emphasize this point is that in practice many people often turn the "opening wider" to a basic purpose.

On this issue, we should stop using the one-sided formulation of "opening wider to the outside world". Why? In the early days of China's reform and opening up, the emphasis on "opening wider to the outside world" helps to increase our country's needs from the international economic system. But today, more than 30 years after reform and opening up, China's domestic capital accumulation has already met the demand, and the foreign exchange gap has become history. At this time, the unilateral emphasis on "opening wider to the outside world" is nothing more than unilaterally restricting itself, but not requiring trade partners to undertake any obligation to open up, sell and invest in China, so this formulation is not appropriate. In view of this, the formulation of "opening wider to the outside world" should be stopped, instead of using the formulation of "building an open economy" (or "building an open economy"). {page_break}

Tengtai: globalization is not wrong in itself. It promotes technology exchange, capital flow, production factors and commodity exchanges, and promotes the development of all mankind. The key to globalization is to see who leads globalization. The globalization led by Europe and the United States will certainly benefit them. Both the European and American dominated global trading system, the IMF financial system and the capital system of the US Wall Street are used by European and American countries. Once the economic problems of these countries occur, the followers of globalization will have to pay the price. For example, the economic crisis of the European and American countries, other countries must pay tuition fees and ill luck.

How to enhance China's leadership in globalization? As a latecomer, China can not play a leading role in the short term. It can only passively accept and gradually participate in efforts to improve its position and defend its interests. China is currently the second largest economy in the world and the largest foreign exchange reserves, which will help China improve its influence. China has been steadily improving its international status in recent years, such as China's helping hand to the European debt crisis.

Zhao Jingfeng: the global financial crisis triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis show that there are also high risks in the international financial environment. In particular, moral hazard and adverse selection in international economic activities can hardly be evade and realized through market mechanism. Frequent trade frictions and the "China Threat Theory" also bring great trouble to China's participation in the world economy. However, these questions must not be a pretext for negating the achievements of China's opening up, nor can they be regarded as a reason for hindering our country's further expansion. Because economic globalization is an irresistible objective trend, and it has advantages and disadvantages, and advantages far outweigh disadvantages. No matter what type of country, developed country or developing country, big country or small country must carefully choose their own mode and way to integrate into globalization. There are many kinds of roads, but there is only one direction. That is to become an advantageous force in the international market, so that economic globalization can serve the development of our country's economy.

In the post crisis era, China faces more opportunities than challenges. These systemic risks are caused by the accumulation of various subjective and objective factors, and can also be avoided. So long as our country has a clear and open mind, boldly breaking all kinds of obstacles in the world, and actively advocating the establishment of a new international economic order, we will be able to solve the problems arising from the open policy and achieve the peaceful rise of great powers.

China should actively respond to and curb the spread of trade protectionism

Securities Times reporter: at present, Global trade protectionism is on the rise. Under such circumstances, how should China respond?

Zhao Jingfeng: there are many reasons why Chinese products are frequently subjected to trade friction when they go out. The main causes of trade friction are: first, the target market of export trade is too concentrated. China's trade surplus mainly comes from the United States and the European Union. Second, the dominant industries of foreign trade are too concentrated. China's trade surplus is mainly concentrated in textile raw materials and textile products, base metals and their products and low-end machinery and equipment industry. Third, the export restrictions of high-tech products in developed countries have led to trade imbalance being artificially enlarged. Fourth, China's market economy status has not been fully recognized, thereby making it easier for trade partners to impose anti-dumping on China. Fifth, China lacks talents in international law and trade.

For these reasons, China's coping strategies include: first, diversify the export market, and actively explore the emerging market. Second, we should continue to promote structural readjustment of foreign trade products in line with the adjustment of industrial structure, get rid of the "low end locking" of manufacturing industries, and expand the extraversion degree of high and new technology industries. Third, through economic and diplomatic means, the developed countries can lift the ban on hi-tech products to China and take the initiative to balance China's balance of payments. Fourth, we should continue to improve China's market economy system, speed up the reform of factor markets, improve the pricing mechanism of all kinds of factors, and actively seek the recognition of various countries' status in China's market economy. Fifth, develop service trade and improve the international competitiveness of China's service industry. Sixth, we will continue to train international talents in trade, law and language.

Mei Xin Yu: for a country like China, which has the world's 1/5 population and relatively scarce resources, only the global multilateral trading system represented by WTO can fully meet the needs of our economic and social development for external markets and resources. Therefore, as a global trading power, we need to strive to maintain and promote the development of WTO, curb the spread of trade protectionism and weaken the negative impact of trade protectionism on our economy and society. To this end, we need to make efforts from the following aspects:

First of all, it is to work together with trade partners to promote the resumption of the Doha round and to ensure that the nature of its "development round" does not change, that is, to ensure that this round of negotiations takes more account of the interests of developing countries and regions.

Second, curb trade protectionism through bilateral, regional and multilateral channels.

Third, make full use of the domestic market which is already in the forefront of the world and continue to grow rapidly, and induce trading partners to suppress their protectionist impulse in order to win the Chinese market.

Fourth, we should form the largest possible anti trade protectionist united front within our trading partners.

Tengtai: China is a victim of trade protectionism, and many countries have implemented trade protection against Chinese products. In fact, the degree of freedom of China's trade has improved rapidly, but the continuous trade surplus has intensified some countries' trade protectionism toward China, so China is still unfairly treated by many countries' trade protectionism. China should respond to this and respond positively. We must defend our interests within the framework of the rules, and dare to pick up the same weapons to fight back, otherwise we will become "Lei Lei Feng".

In addition, China should reduce export subsidies, reduce surplus, change the strategy of opening to the outside world, and pursue the balance of payments. Again, we should familiarise ourselves with our competitors and understand what foreigners are thinking. Through many visits to the United States, I find that there are many interest groups in the United States. The support from multinational corporations may not be supported by industrial workers. Therefore, we need to know ourselves and to appease the industrial workers of the American industrial associations. We should not only care about the interests of large multinational companies. {page_break}

data

In the 10 years since joining the WTO in December 11, 2001, China has participated in 30 cases involving 21 disputes as a dispute party. Among them, 8 cases involved 8 disputes, and 22 cases involved 13 disputes. According to WTO statistics, the United States is the main target of China's litigation, accounting for 6 of the 8 prosecutions in China and 2 from the EU. In China, 11 cases were initiated in the United States, 5 in the European Union, 3 in Mexico, 2 in Canada and 1 in Guatemala. The dispute covers many industries such as steel, integrated circuits, automotive parts, coated paper, textiles, electronic payment systems, and so on.

As of 2010, China has become the world's largest number of anti-dumping investigations for 16 consecutive years. It has become the world's largest number of countervailing countries for 5 years in a row.

During the 10 years, China's gross domestic product increased from 11 trillion yuan in 2001 to nearly 40 trillion yuan in 2010, with an average annual growth of more than 10%.

During the 10 years, the total volume of international trade increased from US $12 trillion and 650 billion in 2001 to US $30 trillion and 390 billion in 2010 and increased by 140% in 10 years.

During the 10 years, the volume of China's cargo trade rose from second in the world to second in 2001, becoming the second largest importer and the largest exporter in the world. The import and export volume of trade in goods increased from 509 billion 800 million US dollars in 2001 to nearly 3 trillion US dollars in 2010, an increase of 4.8 times. Exports rose from $266 billion 98 million to $1 trillion and 577 billion 789 million, an increase of 493%.

During the 10 years, the total foreign direct investment was absorbed by US $759 billion 500 million, ranking the first in developing countries.

In the past 10 years, the average annual growth of foreign direct investment exceeded 40%, reaching 68 billion 800 million in 2010, ranking fifth in the world.

During the 10 years, the total tariff level of China dropped from 15.3% to 9.8%, and the opening sector of service trade reached 100.