Why do Europe and the United States always "anti-dump" against China?

From the EU's announcement of an anti-dumping investigation on China's photovoltaic industry in August last year, to June 4 this year, the EU announced that it will impose anti-dumping duties of up to 47.6% on photovoltaic products produced in China from June 6. An important issue of international trade has always attracted the attention of many parties. However, the anti-dumping behavior of Western countries, mainly represented by the European Union and the United States, against China has long been no exception.

From 1999 to 2009, the proportion of anti-dumping lawsuits against Asian countries and regions in the anti-dumping lawsuits filed in the United States jumped from 48% to 90%, according to calculations provided by the Bureau of Investigation of the US International Trade Commission. , the proportion of anti-dumping lawsuits against mainland China soared from 12% to 57%. During the same period, the proportion of countervailing lawsuits against Asian countries and regions in the countervailing lawsuits filed in the United States soared from zero to 93%, and the countervailing lawsuits against mainland China also soared from zero to 67%.

Undoubtedly, in the context of the global economic downturn, Western countries have The "anti-dumping" action against China has put a "sudden stop" on free trade. It is intriguing that although the topic of trade friction and trade protectionism has never stopped throughout the crisis, the most concentrated manifestation of this "sudden braking" effect is at the moment when the global economy has begun to slowly recover. When trade frictions are blooming everywhere, China has become an obvious "hardest hit area".

Then why is it that Chinese enterprises are repeatedly faced with dumping problems in the export process?

From a macro point of view, the WTO defines dumping as the export of a country's products to another country at a price lower than "normal value", causing damage to the relevant industries of the importing country. On the question of what is "normal value", China's economic position in the world is rather awkward. For the evaluation criteria of "normal value", there are two completely divergent systems.

For a "market economy" country, the normal value of its exports is compared to the price in the exporting country's domestic market. But for "non-market economy" countries, "as long as the method used to determine normal value is appropriate and reasonable", the price of similar products in a market economy country can be used as a standard. This is the so-called third country reference.

The vast majority of social resources in non-market economy countries are controlled by the government. Under the monopoly of such resources, the growth model of enterprises has the problem of government intervention or direct control by the government. Therefore, the prices of its products are not reflective of the true value. And when these products flow into market economy countries, it constitutes unfair competition for the latter's related enterprises.

In this environment, the status of a country's economy is very critical. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s criteria for judging whether a country’s economy is market-oriented is also based on: the degree of currency convertibility; the degree of freedom for labor and capital to negotiate wages; the degree of freedom to establish joint ventures or foreign-funded enterprises; the government’s ownership or control of production methods the extent of government control over resource allocation, output and price decisions by firms, and other conditions as the Commerce Department deems appropriate. To sum up, China is thrown into the ranks of non-market economy countries.

The EU does not have a clear definition of "market economy country", but includes specific countries in the anti-dumping law. So far, the EU has not recognized China's market economy status. Before July 1, 1998, China was also classified as a non-market economy country. Although the EU later removed China from the list of "non-market economy countries", it did not directly pull it into the market economy countries, but decisively established a group of "special market economy countries".

Therefore, whether it is market economy status treatment or separate treatment, it is an unfair arrangement of European and American countries towards China, which is inherently discriminatory. When faced with anti-dumping lawsuits, Chinese enterprises are in an inherently unequal position, which has often happened in recent years when China faces anti-dumping lawsuits.

Since China's accession to the WTO, the EU has initiated anti-dumping against China involving a wide variety of goods. my country's chemical industry is the "hardest hit" by the EU's anti-dumping against China. The main reason for frequent disasters is not only the recognized lack of orderly competition among enterprises and the lack of awareness of not actively responding to lawsuits, but also the industrial characteristics of the chemical industry, which are labor-intensive and have low added value for exporting chemical products. In recent years, the anti-dumping lawsuits brought by developed countries against developing countries tend to focus on low-end and mid-end products that developing countries have cost advantages and that developed countries still produce but whose comparative advantages are not obvious. Therefore, China's cheap labor and raw materials have a certain price advantage, which has also become an incentive for the EU to initiate anti-dumping against China.

However, in today's unstoppable globalization, complex international relations and market operations, there are deeper reasons for the frequent occurrence of "anti-dumping" cases.

From the perspective of the external economic environment, first, the recovery of the world economy is fragile and slow, and the global economy and industrial structure are deeply adjusted. The international financial crisis is not over yet, the fiscal austerity and "deleveraging" in developed economies are still ongoing, the "fiscal cliff" in the United States and the debt crisis in Europe are far from resolved. With the fluctuations and pains of structural adjustment, the world economy grows at a low speed and faces downside risks at any time. There are signs that the United States may step up its anti-subsidy and anti-dumping measures against imports from emerging Asian economies as the domestic economy remains sluggish. Xing Yuqing, an economist at the Asian Development Bank Research Institute, believes that when the economy is not developing well, American companies tend to seek reasons such as unfair competition from imported products in order to obtain more protection.

Take the European Union as an example. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the European Union has been plagued by declining competitiveness. In order to reverse this trend, the EU clearly stated in the "2020 Strategy" promulgated in 2010 that it should strengthen innovation, improve labor productivity, and that R&D and innovation should account for an average of 3% of GDP. Target.

Unfortunately, under the impact of the debt crisis, the EU failed to achieve its own goals. According to EU data, for the goals set by the 27 EU countries according to the "2020 Strategy", only Denmark and Malta met the standards, with a "failure rate" as high as 92.6%. Under such circumstances, the decline of EU competitiveness and economic downturn is not surprising. At present, Europe is in the "second recession" after the financial crisis. Unemployment rate has reached new highs, reaching 12.2%. The youth unemployment rate is more than 25%. The government is under great pressure.

Some experts believe that several economic crises after World War II started a gradual economic recovery within a short period of time. After the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, the US economic recovery was weak and the unemployment rate decreased slowly. Therefore, the US government tends to repeatedly use The protective tariff measures entrusted by the WTO are valid for 3 to 5 years each time, so that the domestic industry gradually shrinks or temporarily takes a breather and avoids massive unemployment in the short term. This is a "loophole" in the setting of WTO rules, which is conducive to the protection of developed countries.

Second, the protectionism of international trade and investment has been strengthened, and a regional free trade body is being formed. Economic downturn and trade protection go hand in hand. Some countries have set up various trade and investment barriers in order to promote employment and support their own industries. In particular, anti-dumping, countervailing and investment reviews against China have increased substantially. Last year, China's solar photovoltaic cells intensively encountered trade frictions. The United States imposed anti-dumping duties of up to 250% and countervailing duties of 16%. The European Union also initiated anti-dumping and countervailing investigations. Overseas investment by some Chinese companies has been repeatedly blocked.

Meanwhile, intra-regional trade has grown rapidly. The intra-EU trade volume has accounted for 66%, the intra-regional trade volume in East Asia accounts for 53%, and more than 40% of the US trade volume is in the North American Free Trade Area. On February 14 this year, the European Union and the United States jointly announced that they will start negotiations on a free trade agreement within this year. So far, the United States will rely on the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) in the Western Pacific and the US-EU Free Trade Agreement in the Atlantic to form two major free trade areas dominated by it. At the same time, the EU and Japan will also start free trade negotiations in April this year. The US-EU and EU-Japan free trade negotiations will formulate new rules, which will inevitably have an important and far-reaching impact on the global trade and economic pattern.

Media analysis pointed out that the U.S. is pushing for the TPP negotiation when the domestic economy is at a low point. However, due to the poor domestic economy of the U.S., imports from emerging Asia-Pacific economies often have to take countermeasures, which will affect the Those Asia-Pacific emerging economies that originally hoped to use the TPP to open up the US market were motivated to participate in the negotiations. Some experts say that the United States hopes that Malaysia and Vietnam, the participating countries in the negotiation, will open the door of the domestic market, but on the other hand, it has to close its own door, which will harm the interests of some countries participating in the TPP negotiation.

Third, exports have increasingly become a new driving force for the economic growth of various countries, and the implementation of trade protectionism has a greater temptation for governments of all countries at the economic level. For example, the U.S. implements "re-industrialization" and export doubling plans, and the economic and trade complementarity between China and the U.S. has declined. The international financial crisis forced the United States to return to the real economy from financial, real estate and other sectors to revive manufacturing and exports. In January this year, the U.S. manufacturing PMI rose to 55.8%, a new high in nearly nine months, and some U.S. companies began to relocate overseas factories to the mainland.

At present, the world, especially developed countries, are in a stage of slow recovery, and it is urgent to find a new impetus to return to prosperity, and this impetus is difficult to tap domestically in the short term. Among them, households, the main consumer, have suffered a severe setback in their spending power due to the loss of financial wealth in the crisis; corporate demand will not increase significantly until the excess capacity is digested; banks are still reluctant to lend, and consumer credit malaise has greatly restricted household consumption and consumption. business spending needs. Under such circumstances, government spending, which was the main driver of growth, is obviously unsustainable, forcing countries to seek breakthroughs in exports.

From the perspective of the external political environment, the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008 severely damaged the economies of the United States and Europe, and also questioned Western politics and value systems. Western countries fell into strategic anxiety and made their strategies and policies toward China more complicated.

The contradictions, competitions and conflicts between China and the United States and other Western countries are still fundamentally opposed to different political systems and value systems. This confrontation will be long-term, sharp and complicated, and it is even more impossible to eliminate it in the short term. The strategic pressure brought by it may accompany the whole process of China's modernization and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Creating trade frictions is in the political interests of the current European and American governments. At present, governments of all countries are facing greater domestic pressure led by stimulating employment. To some extent, trade friction is also a game tool for all parties to seek economic and political interests.

Some experts believe that there may be multi-level intentions in Europe and the United States, which are frequently attacking China on trade issues. Taking the United States as an example, first of all, the most direct purpose of the Obama administration’s condoning trade protectionism is to reduce China’s trade surplus and force the RMB to appreciate; secondly, it may pressure the Chinese government to continue to purchase US treasury bonds, thus providing support for the recovery of the US economy. ; Third, it may be hoped that China will increase investment in the United States, while relaxing market restrictions on foreign financial institutions and further opening up the capital market.

But fundamentally speaking, the pressure of the international community, on the one hand, is the exclusion of emerging economies and domestic trade protectionism. The latter is especially prominent during the economic downturn. Boycotting foreign goods can not only protect the domestic market share, but more importantly, the associated business survival and job market, as well as voter votes only associated with it. It's easy to understand why European and American countries are particularly keen to crack down on China's foreign trade, whether it is dumping, or the issue of a country that manipulates the renminbi exchange rate, which is often brought up recently.

For a long time, China has been relying on exports of low value-added raw materials or more direct labor exports. In the absence of its own brand effect, China has been increasing its export share at the cost of quantity all year round. As a result, more low-value-added products have entered the international market. In addition, domestic labor is cheap due to various reasons. In European and American countries where labor prices are high, a substantive result of "dumping" will naturally occur. Therefore, the dumping problem has two sides.

On the one hand, the prevalence of trade protectionism is indeed inevitable when the global economy is entering a trough. on the other hand. We also need to look directly at our own shortcomings in the industrial structure, especially after the rise of several emerging markets in Southeast Asia, in terms of labor costs, China has lost its absolute advantage in the past. Time is not the case, and it is not a good thing to blindly die on the road to the world's factory. China's economy needs to transform, especially at this moment, it should speed up the pace.