Since the economic crisis in ’08, new trade protectionism has gradually developed. The economic growth of all countries in the world has slowed down, especially under the heavy pressure of high domestic unemployment rate and low export rate, each country has increased the restrictions on imported products. Therefore, to protect the domestic industry.
Although countries have introduced various policies to stimulate consumption and enhance economic development, the world economy is gradually coming out of recession. But the impact of the economic crisis is far from over. The recovery of the world economy is still incomparably long.
This situation of trade exchanges, will enter a predicament. The increasingly frequent use of trade protection policies, various forms of barriers. The patterns are endless. China, with a population of more than a billion people, is a major exporter in world trade, and of course the biggest victim of all kinds of protectionist tactics.
Among the discriminatory trade protection measures implemented by various countries, 40% of them are targeted at China, ranking first in the world. In recent years, the European debt crisis and other successive occurrences, the global economy, especially the economic recovery of developed countries on a rocky road, decided that the impact of trade protection on China will persist in a certain period of time. Industrial exports account for about 85% of China’s total exports, its pivotal position is evident.
1.The harm of trade protectionism
The growth and development of the new trade protectionism has done great harm to our foreign trade.
First, trade protectionism has damaged our world economy and trade atmosphere. Without exception, various forms of trade protection are implemented internally for free trade and externally for harsh trade protection. The negative impact of anti-dumping on WTO has become bigger and bigger, from a certain point of view, it has turned from a legitimate defense mechanism into an offensive weapon to protect trade. It has gradually become an obstacle to maintain fair trade and protect the harmonious and free development of trade.
Secondly, the trade environment of developing countries has been seriously damaged by the implementation of trade protectionism, making the current society, the gap between the rich and the poor further widened. Because of the implementation of various forms of trade protection measures, some traditional trade goods and export goods of developing countries are subject to more and more restrictions. Thus, the trade status of developing countries is getting lower and lower, and their trade conditions are deteriorating.
2. Forms and characteristics of new trade protectionism
Member countries have greater discretion in judging WTO rules, whether it is anti-dumping, countervailing, safeguard measures and various types of green barriers, based on a series of WTO rules and national legislation, the rules themselves reflect the principle of fairness, but because WTO rules to take into account the different requirements of various types of countries of different nature, so that some principle provisions are abused, giving countries greater discretion in judging their reasonableness. The principle of fairness itself is reflected in the WTO rules, but because the WTO rules to take into account the different requirements of various types of countries of different nature, so that some principle provisions are abused, giving countries in the determination of its reasonableness have greater discretion.
For example, in the anti-dumping measures, developed countries against developing countries is commonly used in the selection of alternative countries in the 1979 “anti-dumping code” for the first time confirmed by legislation, does not provide for the selection of alternative countries, which leaves a lot of room for countries to implement anti-dumping, so that Europe and the United States and other Western countries from what they regard as “non-market economy countries This leaves a lot of room for countries to implement anti-dumping, so that Western countries, such as Europe and the United States, have great differences in determining the method of alternative countries for products from countries considered as “non-market economies”, resulting in the determination of the normal value of exports from “non-market economies” with the characteristics of unpredictability, arbitrariness and discrimination, which also leads to these countries have great discretion and strong protectionist color in anti-dumping. .
3.The impact of trade protectionism on China’s foreign trade enterprises under the WTO framework
According to the overall statistics of China’s import and export amounts in the first quarter of 2012-2014, it can be seen that in the first quarter of 2014, China’s total import and export amounted to 965.9 billion U.S. dollars, down 1% year-on-year. Among them, exports of 491.3 billion U.S. dollars, down 3.4%; imports of 474.6 billion U.S. dollars, up 1.6%; trade surplus of 16.7 billion U.S. dollars, down 59.8%. Overall the export performance in the first quarter was poor. Undeniably, there are many factors affecting this, but the impact of trade barriers on it should not be underestimated.
With the accelerated pace of China’s integration into the world economy, China’s exports are facing more and more new trade protectionist barriers in developed countries, which have an increasing impact on China’s foreign trade enterprises.
4.Conclusion
China, as a large export trading country with a population of 1.3 billion, has been suffering from protectionism in recent years. The endless trade barriers from various countries have caused a lot of economic losses to various export enterprises and trading companies in China. Through the analysis of the hazards, characteristics and forms of trade protectionism, we study in depth the various forms of trade barriers faced by China at this stage. We will try our best to reduce the loss of interests suffered by Chinese enterprises due to various trade barriers. In this paper, we propose solutions for the government, industry and enterprises respectively. The research of this paper is of great practical significance to promote the healthy and sustainable development of China’s foreign trade.