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Bloomberg
US and Chinese officials clashed in Geneva on Tuesday as the world’s two largest economies disagreed over how to reform the global trading system.
Deputy US Trade Representative Dennis Shea said the World Trade Organization (WTO) must confront China’s trade abuses while rethinking its preferential rights as a developing nation. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Xiangchen countered that “no one can be singled out†and that Beijing will not back any effort to undermine WTO’s basic principles.
The dispute illustrates the difficulty China and the US face in overcoming escalating tensions that have prompted Washington to impose tariffs on Chinese imports totaling $250 billion and similar retaliatory actions from Beijing. They’ll need to reconcile their diverging views on reforming the WTO while engaged in a commercial war over the fundamental differences between their economic systems.
“Adequately responding to the challenges of non-market econ-omies is nothing less than an existential matter for this inst- itution,†Shea said in comments delivered at the WTO.
Shea said WTO members must tackle the “difficult but crucial question†of whether countries should continue to provide China with the ability to claim more flexible WTO terms than the US.
The WTO’s core agreements offer China and other members special rights that include exemptions, longer imp- lementation periods and technical assistance.
Despite being the world’s second-largest economy, China still considers itself a developing country and benefits from more lenient WTO restricti-ons on its ability to subsidise farmers, for example.