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WJS: China shuns leading role in WTO talks
By Murray Hiebert (The Wall Street Journal)
Updated: 2005-12-06 13:13
Few nations have enjoyed bigger and quicker benefits from the global trading
system than China has since it joined the World Trade Organization four years
ago. Yet few major countries are taking a lower profile than China in the
diplomatic wrangling ahead of a critical WTO meeting next week.
The Dec. 13-18 meeting in Hong Kong will seek to break a stalemate among
developed countries over how to cut agricultural subsidies and proceed with
trade liberalizations that were proposed at the so-called Doha Round of talks in
2001. Beijing has a giant stake in the success of these talks because many of
its farmers and factories would greatly benefit from a cut in agriculture
subsidies and increased market access in general.
China's reluctance to take a leadership role apparently stems from the
delicate balancing act necessary to maintain its trade relationships without
losing its competitive advantages. The surging volume of China's international
trade gives it growing clout with both developing and developed countries. But
Beijing seeks to avoid alienating its major trading partners, its allies in the
developing world and the domestic constituencies left behind in China's rush to
modernize, trade analysts say. China also worries that a prominent role at the
talks will serve as a reminder of the economic threat it poses.
"The current leadership does not want to be seen leading the charge for even
more liberalization," says Nicholas Lardy, an economist at the Institute of
International Economics in Washington.
China so far has declined to help Washington in lobbying the European Union
to reduce its agricultural tariffs, even after U.S. Trade Representative Rob
Portman visited Beijing in mid-November to press China to do so. EU reluctance
to cut subsidies is a key reason why global trade talks have stalled, many trade
experts say.
A U.S. official who regularly deals with Chinese negotiators says he believes
they are keeping their heads down to avoid reminding foreign countries about
China's low-cost competitiveness and booming exports.
While China has been invisible in trade discussions, it has taken a more
assertive role globally, pushing forward the six-party North Korea
denuclearization talks and seeking to define industrial standards. Beijing is
acutely aware of growing concerns abroad over the country's rise as a global
power. As China's economic interests shift, Beijing must also grapple with how
to position itself in relation to longtime allies in the developing world and
interest groups at home.
At the same time as Beijing is seeking to burnish its leadership role in
Asia, China's trade policies are sometimes straining relations with developing
nations. In Thailand, a traditional friend of China, farmers complain they can't
compete with the low-cost Chinese onions and garlic flooding into the country.
And Thai exporters grumble that China uses nontariff barriers such as long
delays in customs clearance to keep out perishable Thai tropical fruit such as
mangoes and papayas.
At home, two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people are farmers, and the
country's annual per-capita gross domestic product in 2004 was 10,561 yuan
($1,307), well within the ranks of developing nations. While some Chinese
farmers have benefited greatly from the WTO's market-opening policies, exporting
large volumes of apples and fresh produce to parts of Asia, many remain mired in
poverty.
Some Chinese textile companies, meanwhile, say Beijing made too many
concessions to secure rapid WTO entry, including granting the U.S. and Europe
the right to impose so-called safeguard quotas on China-made garments if such
imports disrupt local markets.
Both the U.S. and EU this year imposed this class of quotas on select
categories of Chinese textiles, resulting in losses for many producers in China.
To bring more certainty to the market, China signed agreements in recent months
with the U.S. and EU to cap annual growth of certain textile exports to those
huge markets.
Zhang Hanlin, a trade expert at the University of International Business in
Beijing, says China has "diversified interests" in the global trading system. He
notes that even though China is a developing country, it would benefit as much
as most developed countries from further cuts in import tariffs.
China remains a member of the Group of 20, which includes developing
countries that assert that industrialized nations should do more than poorer
nations to cut trade barriers. But unlike India and Brazil, China doesn't play a
pivotal or leadership role in the group. "We will not lead developing countries
to oppose developed countries and set up two different camps," Mr. Zhang says.
Robert Sutter, a China specialist at Georgetown University in Washington,
says that in the run-up to the Hong Kong WTO meeting, the "risk averse" style of
Beijing's leadership in global affairs is prompting China to "wait for the
consensus to form, and then join the consensus."
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