China has moved the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the
United States over its combined countervailing and anti-dumping
rulings on Chinese coated paper.
The Chinese delegation to the WTO notified its US counterpart
about the complaint on Friday, seeking consultations over the
issue, a brief statement on the Ministry of Commerce's website
said.
The initiative step to settle a dispute according to WTO rules
is the first by China since it joined the global trade body in
2001.
If China and the US fail to reach an agreement through
consultations in 60 days, Beijing can ask the WTO to set up a panel
to settle the dispute. Such cases can sometimes take a year or even
longer to settle.
The US Department of Commerce (DOC) began a countervailing probe
into China-made coated paper on November 20, alleging that the
Chinese government had unfairly subsidized certain products.
On March 30, the DOC decided to apply duties on some Chinese
products, reversing its decades-long policy of not subjecting
non-market economies to countervailing probes. The DOC followed up
the case by an anti-dumping probe and imposing duties on the same
products.
Vice-Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng explained last month that
since the US doesn't regard China as a market economy, it uses the
costs of a "surrogate country" to decide whether Chinese products
sold in the US market are priced unfairly low.
Though Ministry of Commerce officials declined to comment on the
case, Gao had said last month that the US violated WTO rules by
launching anti-dumping and countervailing investigations against
Chinese products, including coated paper.
"Investigations and measures undertaken by the US will lead to
double taxation," he said, and such measures run counter to WTO
rules.
The US invariably imposes anti-dumping duties on Chinese
companies exporting subsidized products. So if countervailing
duties are also imposed, it means double taxation.
A researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and
Economic Cooperation, Mei Xinyu, said on Friday: "The case that
China has filed shows the country is learning to protect its
enterprises through multinational rules that it committed to while
joining the WTO."
(China Daily September 15, 2007)
