More covert measures

He Weiwen, of the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing, told the Global Times that the trade conflict is a global issue as the world economy struggles to recover from the recession and the global unemployment rate keeps rising.

A new report from the UK's Centre for Economic Policy Research showed that China is now the biggest victim of protectionism. Out of the 297 protectionist measures that nations have implemented since November 2008 to early this month, 47 target China.

"Governments prefer policies that would favor their domestic industries, while downplaying or ignoring free-trade regulations. China should prepare to see frequent occurrence of trade frictions until the global economic situation improves," He said.

Actually, China's exports last year only accounted for 8 percent of total global exports, but 35 percent of anti-dumping investigations and 71 percent of anti-subsidy investigations were aimed at China, making it the biggest target of the double investigations for the 15th consecutive year, figures from the WTO show.

As of the end of November, 19 countries and regions had launched 103 trade remedy investigations against Chinese products. Both the number of the cases and the money involved hit a record high, Zhou Xiaoyan, director of the fair trade bureau of the MOC, said on Monday.

The US made a decision late last month to impose duties ranging from 10.36 percent to 15.78 percent on Chinese oil-well pipes for alleged unfair subsidies. It was the largest case of trade sanctions against China by the US, and which involved $ 3.2 billion.

As counter measures, China launched 11 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations this year and made rulings on 9 cases.

"The authorities are obliged to assist Chinese enterprises with their trade activities and expansion efforts in overseas markets by offering them accurate, abundant and timely information concerning the local market situation and laws based on thorough research and study of the WTO rules," He suggested.

The State Information Center said Tuesday it expected China's exports and imports to rise six percent and 11 percent, year on year, respectively, in 2010. It forecast the country's trade surplus to stand at $184 billion next year.

Zhang Hanlin, director of the WTO research institute at the UIBE, said the trade environment for China would be more severe next year and protectionist measures would be more covert and strategically oriented, citing carbon tariffs as an example.

The government should upgrade its export structure by encouraging the exports of indigenous brands and products using Chinese technology, and step up imports of technology, key machinery parts and strategic resources, the MOC noted in its Tuesday review.