U.S. critiques China’s WTO compliance in report

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released its annual report to Congress on the status of China’s compliance with its World Trade Organization membership obligations.    The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Tuesday publicly released its annual report to Congress on the status of China’s compliance with its World Trade Organization membership obligations.
   While the USTR praised China for coming a long way to abolish longstanding trade barriers since its WTO accession on Dec. 11, 2001, the agency highlighted a number of areas where the country’s trade policies still fall short.
   “If China is going to deal successfully with its economic challenges at home, it must allow market forces to operate, which requires altering the role of the state in planning the economy,” USTR wrote in its report. “It likewise must reform state-owned enterprises, eliminate preferences for domestic national champions and remove market access barriers currently confronting foreign goods and services.”
   USTR said China must still do more to protect foreign companies’ intellectual property, for example, and noted “enforcement of China’s competition laws should be fair, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory.” 
   The United States has remained aggressive against confronting China’s remaining trade barriers, and has brought 15 cases against the country before the WTO since its accession, more than twice as many WTO cases as any other member country has brought against China, USTR said.
   Despite continued political and economic friction between the two countries, U.S. exports to China reached $122 billion in 2013, an increase of 535 percent since 2001, making China the largest goods export market for the United States. U.S. services exports to China totaled $38 billion in 2013.
   The complete 180-page USTR report to Congress can be viewed here.