Anti-dumping, as a trade protection measure recognized and licensed by the GATT and the World Trade Organization, is an internationally accepted means of protecting domestic industries and a necessary tool used to deal with unfair competition. It has the form of legal, easy to implement, can effectively protect the domestic industry and not easy to incur retaliation characteristics. In recent years, China's products in the international market repeatedly made anti-dumping complaints, recognize the reasons for foreign anti-dumping allegations against China's products, and take corresponding countermeasures, has become China's enterprises to further broaden the international market of the urgent need to become the theoretical community's attention to a focus. This paper will analyze the status quo and characteristics of foreign anti-dumping against China, clarify its reasons, and then
I. The status quo and characteristics of foreign anti-dumping complaints against China
In the past 20 years, China's economy and export trade has gained rapid growth. However, with the increase in the volume of China's merchandise export trade and the rise in the ranking on the world export list, the countries initiating anti-dumping investigations against China have also gradually appeared to be expanding, "for example, from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Japan and other developed countries in the 80's gradually expanding in recent years to a number of developing countries, such as Mexico, India, Egypt, South Africa, Peru, and Turkey and other countries have also frequently filed anti-dumping investigations against China." In addition, because in recent years China has been Europe and the United States and some other countries as the number one target of anti-dumping, so the anti-dumping investigations against China's exporters and export products one after another, "Comprehensive WTO statistics and the State Economic and Trade Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of the statistics, from August 1979, the European *** body of China's exports of saccharinna launched the first anti-dumping case Since the beginning of December 2001, there have been Europe and the United States and other 29 countries to China *** counted 477 anti-dumping cases, China has become the world's anti-dumping investigations suffered by the largest number of cases of the country. 2000 countries filed a total of 251 anti-dumping cases, of which our country has been the anti-dumping prosecution of the case of 33 cases of anti-dumping in China accounted for the world's total of anti-dumping of more than 13%, but China's exports accounted for more than 13% of the world total, but China's exports accounted for only 9% of the world total in that year. 2001 January - mid-November, China suffered from foreign anti-dumping complaints has reached 34 cases, has exceeded the 2000 anti-dumping complaints by the case". Obviously, China has been the biggest victim of the anti-dumping wave in the world. Countries on my exports of products frequently anti-dumping has constituted a substantial obstacle to the development of China's economic and trade.
From the analysis of the current situation of foreign anti-dumping against China, the following characteristics can be drawn:
(1) The developed countries, mainly the European Union, are the "main force" of anti-dumping charges against China. In the anti-dumping charges against China's products in the countries and regions, the EU has been the "leader". China encountered the first anti-dumping charges originated from the EU. In recent years, the EU's anti-dumping charges against foreign countries and regions are increasing day by day. According to a statistical report published by the European Commission shows that "only in 1999, the EU on other countries and regions to implement anti-dumping and countervailing measures as high as 89 cases, an increase of 61 cases over the previous year, which involves products from the Chinese mainland for 12 cases (1 in 1998). In the first quarter of this year, the EU has imposed temporary anti-dumping duties involving 22 kinds of imports, and permanent anti-dumping duty measures on 9 kinds of imports" .
(2) anti-dumping objects are concentrated in my export "fist products", thus affecting to a large extent the stability of my export growth and growth. "Such as the European Union on China's color TV, bicycles, bags, footwear products, hot-rolled flat steel and malleable cast iron pipe fittings to implement anti-dumping measures, especially on my exports of color TV levied as high as 44.6% of anti-dumping duties, almost make China's color TV out of the European Union market, while the market imports of 10 to 15 million units per year. The export market is shrinking, but also China's domestic color TV enterprises to play a price war of an external cause. In addition, such as my second largest trading partner in Latin America, Argentina, Chinese textiles, clothing, footwear, toys, etc. also levied a high anti-dumping duties".
(3) anti-dumping initiating countries and regions from the initial developed countries began to extend to developing countries and regions. In recent years, the European Union, the United States and other developed countries on my anti-dumping allegations day by day at the same time, Russia, Indonesia, Argentina, Taiwan and other developing countries and regions have also joined the anti-dumping allegations against me in the team, such as Argentina to our country large to electromechanical, chemical and other high value-added products and textiles. Clothing, toys and other bulk products, as small as tableware, fireworks, padlocks, paper plates and other low value-added products, a wide range of anti-dumping measures, so that bilateral trade has been seriously affected.
(4) Anti-dumping litigation has become an important legal code for multinational corporations to deal with the impact of Chinese products in the global market. From the theory of comparative advantage, developing countries have the comparative advantage of low labor cost compared with developed countries, thus under the open economic conditions, the former with its comparative advantage of labor-intensive products and the latter's comparative advantage of technology- and capital-intensive products in the market for the exchange of both sides to take advantage of the strengths of each side. In general, developing countries tend to be at a disadvantage because of the constraints imposed by the terms of trade, market dependence and non-price competitive factors. However, from a practical point of view, due to the existence of exit barriers such as capital deposition and labor force transfer, some developed country TNCs are reluctant to withdraw from the production of labor-intensive products, or prolong the withdrawal time as much as possible. In this way, before the completion of industrial structure upgrading, the government needs to provide a certain degree of trade protection. China's exports of low-priced, high-volume, decentralized manufacturers, it is easy to become the target of foreign anti-dumping lawsuits.
Two, China's repeated foreign anti-dumping complaints and its analysis
Anti-dumping of Chinese products has indeed become China's exports of the "blocking tiger", and with the scale of China's exports expanding year by year, this problem will be long-term serious highlighted in front of China's foreign trade authorities and operators. Know yourself and know your enemy, seriously analyze the reasons for China's repeated foreign anti-dumping is conducive to the smooth progress of China's exports.
(1) the objective existence of low-priced dumping has become a fuse for anti-dumping litigation. Foreign anti-dumping investigations of China's exports to a certain extent is not empty. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's economy has achieved rapid development, but because the market is not yet standardized, the phenomenon of blindly following the trend of the widespread phenomenon, which led to a large number of lack of purposeful duplication of construction and blind development of the market behavior. The market thus appeared a large number of surplus products, enterprises in order to survive in its domestic and export sales strategy to take the low price dumping strategy. "In terms of export prices, a Hong Kong publication's survey of our 160 export products found that the prices of 120 commodities were 20% lower than they should be. This shows that the phenomenon of selling our products to foreign countries at prices lower than normal does exist to a certain extent. At the same time there is also a lot of data to show that some of China's exporters of low-priced sales to the importing country's domestic industry of similar products caused substantial damage".
The phenomenon of dumping of products of our enterprises has a comprehensive and deep-rooted causes. First of all, according to Heckscher-Ohlin theory, the reason why trade exists between two countries is due to the difference in commodity prices. Related to China's national conditions, the price of raw materials and human resources in the production market of China's products is relatively low, so the enterprises are in a position to rely on the low price strategy to open up the international market, to enhance the competitiveness of their own products and expand exports. Secondly, a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises in China do not pay attention to the introduction and study of advanced management and sales concepts, resulting in backward sales concepts. In the marketing is still widely used in a relatively single price strategy, and do not pay attention to their own products in the performance, service and other hardware improvements, which will inevitably be manifested in their export sales strategy. Again, the export structure is unbalanced. From the product structure, China's exports are mostly labor-intensive textiles, electromechanical products, chemical products, product value-added is relatively low, easy to give the importing countries to create the impression of low-priced dumping. From the market structure, 65% of our country is to Europe and the United States as the target market, exports are too centralized, intense competition. In addition, with the government and some departments to blindly encourage exports lack of guidance also has a certain connection.
(2) China's economic system and enterprise operation mode of state control on the market operation mode of the problem. Our 1993 constitutional amendment expressly provides for the implementation of a socialist market economy. Obviously, what we are going to implement is not the market economy of the West, and there are certain differences between our socialist market economy and the market economy of the West. In the past 20 years, although China has taken many reform measures in the process of moving towards the market, such as the implementation of a single exchange rate system through the exchange rate merger, allowing and encouraging foreign capital to enter many domestic production areas, and promoting the rational allocation of resources through the establishment of the market for means of production, labor and capital, but both from the economic system and from the analysis of economic theory, and can not be classified in this regard
as a market economy, but also as a socialist market economy. /p>
For the market economy. And because of the European and American countries, the law or generally have a market economy and non-market economy
differentiation criteria, "some of its main criteria include: the degree of free exchange of a country's currency; the degree of free negotiation of wages between labor and capital; the degree of state control over the means of production, resource allocation and ownership, etc.". In view of the fact that in the current economic operation mechanism of China, the economic operating bodies are all state-owned or controlled by the state, which reflects the situation that the state directly manages or operates enterprises through its ownership is also more common, in addition, the foreign exchange under the capital item is still under the control of the state, and the restriction on the entry of some monopolized industries, etc., the above situation reflects the difference between the current economic operation mode and the general market economy mode on the one hand, and the state's control over the allocation of resources and ownership on the other hand. On the one hand, the above situation reflects the difference between the current mode of economic operation and the general market economy mode, on the other hand, it also affects the countries on the operation of China's economic system is mainly through the market to allocate resources, means of production, labor and capital of the objective evaluation.
(3) Trade protectionists abuse the provisions of the WTO agreement on anti-dumping. Anti-dumping is a legitimate means of protecting domestic industries allowed by the WTO. According to the WTO "anti-dumping agreement", the governments of various countries to impose anti-dumping duties on an imported product, not only to prove that there is an imported product "dumping", as well as dumping on the importing country's domestic production of similar products caused damage to the industry, but also to prove that there is a cause and effect relationship between the dumping of the imported product and damage to the industry, "i.e., the dumping and industry. It is also necessary to prove that there is a causal link between the dumping of the imported product and the injury to the industry, "i.e., that the injury to the like industry in the importing country is caused by the dumping of the imported product". However, the agreement does not make a specific judgment on whether "dumping" is unfair competition, but sets out rules for member countries on whether they can take anti-dumping measures. In view of the WTO agreement has clearly restricted the use of quotas and licenses and other non-tariff barriers to protect their own industries, so the anti-dumping measures allowed by the WTO to protect their own industries as a legitimate means of protection of their own industries, frequently used to oppose unfair competition in other countries. Some countries have been strengthening their anti-dumping legislation in recent years, lowering the constitutive elements of dumping and expanding the scope of anti-dumping investigations. The abuse of anti-dumping measures by countries' trade protectionism is specifically reflected in the massive increase in global anti-dumping cases.
Three, China's countermeasures to cope with foreign anti-dumping complaints
(1) seize the opportunity of accession to the WTO, a sound socialist economic pricing system, adjusting and optimizing the structure of export commodities, and improve product quality. To give full play to the role of the law of value, so that enterprises become the real main body of the market economy, independently bear the risk, so that the price of the product and the value of the commodity is directly linked to the establishment of the price system of the market economy. Especially important is to minimize the types of commodities priced by the state, in order to promote the early establishment of the price system of the socialist market economy. In this way, even if my enterprise export commodities encounter importing country manufacturers and other anti-dumping complaints, due to my enterprise export commodity prices are mainly market factors, and is not subject to state pricing control, it is possible to according to Europe and the United States of America and the relevant provisions of the anti-dumping law, and strive to obtain the enterprise involved in the case of a separate rate of duty or even the entire industry's market economy status, so that the Europe and the United States of America and other countries of anti-dumping law in the provisions of the so-called alternative country At the same time, our country should actively comply with the market requirements, reform the product structure, abandon the duplication of construction, the implementation of product differentiation strategy, enhance the value-added products, to avoid excessive competition among enterprises in low value-added products. The Ministry of Commerce, industry associations and exporters will be asked to export goods in a timely manner sales situation and channels, to understand the impact of their exports on similar products in importing countries, and actively help enterprises to do a good job in responding to complaints.
(2) as soon as possible to rationalize the enterprise property rights system, minimize and eliminate the state's direct management and control of enterprises. "Europe and the United States anti-dumping law that in a market economy. The government usually plays a minimal role in resource allocation and price determination. Private enterprises, however, are driven by profits and make their business decisions based on changes in market supply and demand meters without government intervention. Therefore, the products and production costs of private enterprises can more reasonably reflect the economic reality." For my export enterprises, if I can make the foreign administration recognize its market economy status, it means that the cost and price of my export products have the possibility of being recognized directly, otherwise, the production cost and product price of the enterprises involved in the case will not be recognized, but the cost of a similar product in a third country with a so-called market economy nature will have to be used as an alternative price. And because of the great uncertainty of this alternative price choice, it will cause substantial unfairness and discrimination to my export enterprises. In the face of the above situation, our export enterprises should, on the one hand, promote the rationalization of their property rights system through their own institutional reforms, and use this as the basis for the establishment of a modern enterprise system. In addition, the existing state-owned enterprises should also speed up its shareholding reform, and in the rationalization of the property rights system of state-owned enterprises under the premise of effective mechanism to cut off the enterprise and the state in the property rights of the connection between the relationship, so as to further reduce and abolish the state's direct management and control of the enterprise to create good objective conditions.
(3) Utilizing the WTO's multilateral dispute settlement mechanism to counter countries' discriminatory treatment of me. Although WTO accession will not immediately change the status quo of China's repeated foreign anti-dumping complaints, but after WTO accession, China can use the multilateral trading system on the one hand
of the right to speak to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of our country, on the other hand, the use of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism to challenge these discriminatory practices, our country should be increased in Europe and the United States and other countries in the anti-dumping complaints in the laws and regulations and the discriminatory policy of our country in the WTO rules to be judged in the strength of the WTO in order to early through the WTO as a multilateral trading system to safeguard the normal treatment of our country deserves.
(4) was anti-dumping complaints of enterprises to actively respond to complaints. For my exports of international anti-dumping case has been a high status quo, export enterprises on the one hand in the international anti-dumping case before the case should be proactive, as early as possible to take a variety of precautionary measures, in a timely manner to fully understand the enterprise's exports or other similar export products in the importing country's sales prices and trends, as well as the export of the products of the importing country of the same kind of industry caused by the impact of a variety of. At the same time, in order to ensure that domestic enterprises actively respond to foreign anti-dumping lawsuits, industry associations or chambers of commerce of importers and exporters can consider the establishment of a response fund, membership in the enterprise according to the amount of exports of more or less proportional to the annual contribution to the response fund, once the same kind of exports encountered in the anti-dumping allegations abroad, by the response to the fund to pay the relevant costs of the response, including attorneys' fees and the enterprise to jointly respond to the organizational costs of the case when the international anti-dumping case, the enterprise involved in the case should be Actively respond to the case, only actively respond to the case, it is possible to obtain better results in response to the case, which mainly includes the following aspects: "① export enterprises should be early to understand the requirements of the anti-dumping answer, and do a good job in the preparation of materials to respond to the case. Once the anti-dumping case, the foreign anti-dumping authorities will require the enterprises involved in the case to answer all kinds of questionnaires in a timely manner in the specified time, the export enterprises should be filled out carefully according to the objective situation; ② export enterprises must be in the country's competent anti-dumping authorities and industry associations and import and export chambers of commerce in the *** with the coordination and support of the rapid organization and actively respond to the lawsuit; ③ to hire experienced and friendly to me local lawyers for defense and responsible for handling the case. Hiring local lawyers to conduct anti-dumping litigation is not only necessary, but also essential, not only because the local lawyers have numerous personnel relations and business contacts with the authorities concerned, but more importantly, they are familiar with the local laws and complex litigation procedures and formalities, and in general, only the local lawyers have the right to access, under oath, to the files and information relating to the case, especially confidential materials, so that they can do know my enemy and myself, so that the plea can be conducted more effectively and a favorable result obtained in my favor."