China swirls in whirlpool of protectionism
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Closely following a trade victory last month with US tariffs on Chinese tires, on September 25, the US' United Steelworkers union weighed whether to join a trade case accusing China of dumping seamless steel tubes in the US.
It later launched a lawsuit against Chinese imports of coated paper.
On October 6, the EU ruled that seamless steel pipe from China to Europe damaged its industry and decided to levy a 17.7-39.2 percent anti-dumping tax.
And it won't mark an end, as AFP reported that penalty taxes on Chinese and Vietnamese shoe imports into Europe, first applied in October 2006, should be extended by another 15 months. Other Chinese export sectors, including steel cables, industrial chemicals and metal fasteners, have been similarly targeted.
"Mob-like response"
The increasing trade tensions echo Chad Bown's article published in late August in the Financial Times.
"The World Bank-sponsored Global Antidumping Database suggests that, since the economic turmoil began, countries have been ganging up to use World Trade Organization (WTO) rules in an almost mob-like response to restrict imports from China," said Bown, a US economics professor at Brandeis University, doubting today's struggling world economy could withstand a strong international protectionist backlash.
Industry demands for new import restrictions against China under "safeguards" and other policies such as anti-dumping were up 23 percent in 2008, and are on pace for another increase in 2009.
It is not limited to the US and EU, however. India, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey are also imposing new import restrictions on China.
Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Yao Jian said Thursday at a regular press conference that 19 countries and regions launched 88 trade investigations into Chinese-made products in the first three quarters of the year. The total amount involved in these trade investigations is $10.2 billion.
"Trade frictions could increase, and we should get well prepared," He Maochun director of the Research Center of Economy and Diplomacy at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times.
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