Expert On International Cooperation In Quality Inspection Interpretation Of Fair Trade And Trade Frictions

At present, the world economy is still in the deep adjustment period after the international financial crisis. Global demand is sluggish, large-scale international industrial pfer has slowed down significantly and trade protectionism has continued to heat up.

China's economy is in the "three phase superposition" stage, and economic development has entered a new normal.

At present,

Still in the deep adjustment period after the international financial crisis, global demand is sluggish, large-scale international industrial pfer has slowed down significantly and trade protectionism has continued to heat up.

China's economy is in the "three phase superposition" stage, and economic development has entered a new normal.

In the coming period, foreign trade development opportunities and challenges will come.

Doing fair trade in import and export is very important for maintaining the export trade environment and ensuring the national economic security.

For this reason,

The barrier resource network interviewed Guo Lisheng, a senior expert on quality inspection and international cooperation, as a witness and negotiator who participated in China's WTO accession negotiations, and asked her to talk about WTO's fair trade and trade frictions.

Q: as an older generation who has worked in the WTO field for more than 40 years, do you have any idea about "fair trade"?

Guo Lisheng: fair trade is one of the basic principles of WTO.

The benchmark principle of WTO is to promote world economy and trade.

These basic principles can be summed up as three basic principles: "non discrimination principle", "fair trade principle" and "pparency principle".

The principle of non discriminatory treatment includes the most favored nation treatment principle and the national treatment principle, the fair trade principle, the pparency principle, the trade liberalization principle, the market access principle, the reciprocity principle, the special and differential treatment principle to the developing countries and the least developed countries, and the principle of fair and equal treatment of trade disputes.

The fair trade principle means that WTO prohibits members from using unfair trade means such as dumping or subsidies to disrupt normal trade, and allows anti-dumping and countervailing trade remedy measures to ensure fair international trade.

"Agreement", "safeguards agreement", "agricultural agreement" and so on, to regulate dumping, subsidies and safeguard measures in order to maintain fair market competition order in international trade in goods; the general agreement on trade in services (GATS) of WTO encourages members to eliminate restrictive business practices in trade in services through mutual consultation and exchange of information through mutual opening of the service trade market, and to prohibit monopoly or monopoly service providers from abusing the dominant position of monopoly; the WTO and trade related intellectual property rights agreement (TRIPS), with national treatment and MFN treatment as the basic principles, requires members to strengthen effective protection of intellectual property rights, and crack down on unfair competition, such as counterfeiting, piracy, exclusion of conditions, compulsory package licensing and so on. WTO has made many agreements to ensure the implementation of fair trade, such as the agreement on the implementation of the sixth GATT 1994 (often referred to as anti dumping agreement) and the agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures (SCM

Q: how do you view the current trade friction situation?

With the rapid development of foreign trade and the continuous promotion of market opening, the trade frictions suffered by Chinese enterprises are inevitable.

Over the past 30 years since reform and opening up, China's foreign trade has been developing continuously and rapidly.

According to statistics, in 1978, China's foreign trade volume was only 20 billion 600 million US dollars. In 2014, the total import and export volume was 43000 billion US dollars, almost 208 times the difference. The increase in trade volume naturally led to the increase in the number of trade frictions.

China's chain of trade friction is also very obvious. Steel, footwear, toys and other superior export products frequently appear in a different market, the phenomenon of trade remedy investigation, showing friction national proliferation and relief measures superimposed momentum.

Trade friction has not only exacerbated our export environment, weakened the international competitiveness of our products, caused export enterprises to run difficulties, and affected a large number of personnel employment, but also brought great challenges to China's macroeconomic regulation and control and economic operation.

Take the import, after China's accession to the WTO, tariff reduction, non-tariff barriers are reduced, the market is gradually opening up, import growth is increasing, but now it has entered the bottleneck stage, and the domestic sales situation of foreign trade is everywhere.

In addition, some countries feel that the development of China's market still has great potential and hopes for the Chinese market. They hope that our market will become more open. This also makes us face the contradiction between opening up the market and protecting domestic industries.

Since joining the WTO, 91 anti dumping investigations have been launched in China's domestic industry application, which illustrates the pressure on domestic industry from one aspect.

The issue of foreign trade in recent years has further illustrated this problem.

Q: at present and in the future, how do you think China can make fair trade fall and reduce trade frictions?

Guo Lisheng: the rise of an economic power will objectively aggravate the friction with the outside world. The western developed countries jointly challenge China's rise, as well as the adjustment of the world economic interest pattern and the imbalance of trade.

Therefore, for quite a long time, China will face the grim situation of frequent trade frictions.

Major changes have taken place in the international economic and trade situation. New multilateral agreements, such as the p Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP), the p the Atlantic trade partner negotiations (TTIP) and the international trade in Services Agreement (TISA), the negotiation of regional FTA, the signing of the FTA between China, South Korea and Australia, and the negotiation of China ASEAN GCC free trade agreement are also in full swing.

Changes in the global political and economic environment have made us realize that the connotation and extension of fair trade is not only confined to the content related to WTO, but also involves all areas related to trade, investment liberalization and facilitation.

　　因此，中國要想在如今的自由貿易的大大環境下做到“公平貿易”，就需要旗幟鮮明地反對貿易保護主義：積極推動自由貿易區的談判，落實貿易與投資的便利化;充分發揮“一帶一路”和走出去的戰略優勢，帶動出口效應;有條件的大中型企業走出去，到進口國投資設廠，就地生產銷售，可繞開貿易壁壘;繼續貫徹市場多元化戰略;加強雙邊磋商與談判，互諒互讓，力求化解貿易摩擦;加強國際協調，積極倡導通過磋商解決貿易摩擦;敦促西方國家認真吸取大蕭條時期的深刻教訓，在反對貿易保護主義方面做些實事;爭取歐盟、美國及早承認我國的市場經濟地位;充分利用WTO規則，維護企業和國家利益;充分利用WTO爭端解決機制，對國際貿易保護主義進行必要的斗爭;必要時采取貿易報復措施，讓對方體會到搞貿易保護主義得不償失;最根本的應對措施是盡快調整產業結構

Enterprises should adhere to the concept of innovation and develop in the direction of deep processing, high added value, top grade and brand name.

Q: what should be considered for our country, especially the government of Shenzhen, when formulating policies and preventing trade frictions?

Guo Lisheng: trade friction is a normal phenomenon in international trade. Inevitably, its damage is limited. Our government can neither Act nor act excessively.

The starting point of policy formulation should be to minimize the damage caused by trade friction.

First, we must profoundly understand and skillfully apply international rules to deal with foreign economic and trade relations in a rational, advantageous and effective way.

We should actively and effectively deal with cases of trade friction and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises.

Second, different trade protectionism behaviors should be treated with different measures to deal with their human body with their own way. They should use the WTO rules and appropriate trade retaliatory measures to deal with the compliance trade protectionism behavior, and curb illegal or other types of trade protectionism through developing economic diplomacy, WTO diplomacy and strengthening cooperation.

Third, we should formulate and implement the strategy of "national foreign trade image", strengthen our independent intellectual property strategy, adhere to the strategy of free trade area, make full use of the strategic opportunity of "one belt and one road" and encourage "going out".

Finally, we should establish an efficient and pragmatic public service system for WTO affairs, strengthen the theoretical and practical research of international trade, build a fair trade database, improve the number of key enterprises in the industry and the reporting rate of enterprises, and improve the relevant legal system and trade relief system.

Guo Lisheng:

Senior Consultant of China entry exit inspection and Quarantine Association.

The deputy director of the standard and regulation center of the State General Administration of quality inspection (gqsiq), deputy director of China WTO/TBT national bulletin and Consulting Center (deputy local level), research fellow, enjoy the special allowance of the State Council and the master of law graduate student.

A senior expert on quality inspection international cooperation has participated in the negotiation of China's accession to the WTO and has long been engaged in the research of WTO technology barriers.