North Star Solar Photovoltaic Network News: The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently ruled that China could impose tariffs on US goods of up to 3.6 billion U.S. dollars each year as the US government fails to comply with the ruling and cancel anti-dumping duties on China. The ruling marks that the lawsuit, which originated in 2012 and revolved around Sino-US solar panels, wind power towers and other products, ended with Chinese victory. This fine is the third highest ruling in WTO history. Gao Jifan, chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association and chairman of Trina Solar Co., Ltd., recently accepted an interview with the Global Times and talked about how Chinese PV companies have broken through the siege in the face of European and American containment.
Gao Jifan told reporters that China's photovoltaic industry rose at the end of the last century. After the financial crisis in 2008, many photovoltaic companies in Europe, America, and Japan went bankrupt. Chinese photovoltaic companies quickly filled the market blanks of these enterprises. However, since 2011, the United States has used "double anti-dumping" (anti-dumping, countervailing) as a weapon for many Chinese products, mainly photovoltaic products, and has joined hands with Europe to hang off China's photovoltaic industry. At that time, China's photovoltaic module products occupied 60% of the global market, of which more than 95% depended on overseas markets for sales.
"The alliance of the United States and the United States has basically blocked the life of Chinese photovoltaic companies." Gao Jifan said that there is virtually no problem in the photovoltaic industry in China. "For this, we are convinced that, under the coordination of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Mechanical and Electrical Products, the companies surveyed conducted industry defenses." The US market then accounted for a large proportion of sales, and Chinese companies used various channels to trade with the United States. Measures were opposed. "We also noticed that as soon as the US's anti-dumping measures came out, local PV installers were also very opposed because they had fewer products to choose from. This gave us great confidence."
Beginning in 2012, China had difficult negotiations with the European Union, and finally reached a settlement plan in July 2013. The Chinese photovoltaic industry continued to export to the EU market, despite the constraints of the settlement plan. After the EU conditionally opened the market to China, the United States has always adhered to the "double-reverse" policy against Chinese photovoltaics, but after 7 years of long lawsuits, on November 1, this year, the WTO arbitration agency ruled: support China's annual value of about 36 Billion U.S. dollars in U.S. merchandise is subject to retaliatory tariffs.
Gao Jifan told reporters that the WTO's ruling represents a negation of US unilateralism by the world's multilateral economic organizations, indicating that some protective laws in the United States are contrary to global trade rules. At the same time, this case also reminds Chinese companies not only to actively participate in and use international rules, but also to become rule-makers.
In response to this case, Liu Jianwei, a lawyer at Beijing Zhonglun Law Firm, said in an interview with a reporter from the Global Times that one of the important reasons for China's victory is its in-depth understanding and proficiency in the WTO's rules for settling trade disputes. "On the one hand, China abides by these rules, and on the other hand, China has the power to question and restrict certain Western developed countries that do not abide by the rules." He believes that the success of WTO disputes in a number of cases, including the photovoltaic case, is more significant. This clarifies the multilateral rules of trade remedies and restricts the possibility that certain countries may abuse anti-dumping and countervailing measures. In the future, they will have to become more disciplined when conducting trade remedy investigations, including investigations on Chinese products.
Liu Jianwei believes that in the face of international trade relief and dispute settlement lawsuits, China has formed a mature response system after years of growth, enterprises have actively responded to complaints, chambers of commerce and industry associations have been efficiently organized, and government departments, especially the Ministry of Commerce, have become very professional in their departments. Coping mechanism and accumulated a lot of experience. "China has changed from being a learner and follower of multilateral trade rules to becoming a skilled user of the rules. This change is very obvious."
Since last year, Chinese companies have faced new issues such as the Sino-US trade war and increased tariffs, but conventional trade remedy investigations such as anti-dumping, countervailing, and US 337 investigations have not been interrupted. Liu Jianwei said, "The trade war and tariff measures may be terminated or mitigated as a result of an agreement between the two parties, but the restrictive effect of this conventional trade remedy measure on Chinese industries is long-term, and as trade frictions intensify, conventional trade remedy investigations The ruling tax rate is also on the rise ".
Due to strong US obstruction, the appeal mechanism of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism has recently been paralyzed. Liu Jianwei believes that although the WTO rules are still in force, the actual shutdown of the appellate body due to the predicament of the selection of the appellate staff and the prevalence of unilateralism and protectionism in some countries may make some countries decide on regular cases. The tendency to protect domestic industries requires Chinese enterprises, governments, and business associations to make more preparations for the new situation, including taking into account the use of the domestic judicial review procedures of the other country. He also reminded that as China exports more and more products to countries outside the West, the scope of trade remedy cases is more extensive, including many emerging market countries that frequently impose various trade restrictions on Chinese products. It is already very obvious and worthy of attention.
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