WTO Backs China

On March 27, the World Trade Organization (WTO) released a panel report on the case of China's appeal against the U.S. amendment to the Tariff Act of 1930. The panel supported China's claim of being unfairly subjected to "double remedy" taxation and found that the U.S. Department of Commerce had failed to take the necessary actions to avoid the imposition of such taxation in the 25 anti-dumping and countervailing cases it made against China from 2006 to 2012.

The United States has thus been found to be in violation of the WTO rules. Shen Danyang, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), said on the same day that China welcomes such a decision.

He said this case involves more than $7.2 billion each year and touches upon an enormous trade benefit for China. He added that China hopes the United States will respect the WTO's ruling and change its abusive use of trade remedy measures as soon as possible to ensure an environment of fair competition for Chinese enterprises.

The United States, through its amendment to the Tariff Act (also referred to as the GPX Bill) on March 13, 2012, backdated and authorized its investigative institutions to levy countervailing tax on "non-market economy countries" from November 20, 2006, but such actions were not found to be in clear violation of WTO rules...

Shen said that China is assessing the panel report, and will do the follow-up work according to WTO dispute settlement procedures...

This has been excerpted from the 21 April 2014 article by Beijing Review, and is available in its entirety at http://www.bjreview.com.cn/business/txt/2014-04/21/content_614474_2.htm