Implications For China Of The Draft Agricultural Modalities In Doha Round

The paper studies the impact of Doha agriculture draft modalities on agriculture sector in China and provides the negotiation position and strategy from Chinese prespective. The main contents and findings are the following1. The analysis on the path and key area of multilaterial agriculture negotiation is conducted from three aspects, which include the GATT, Urgruary Round and Agreement on Agriculture (herein refers to AOA) the development of Doha Round and its negotiation framework. This part examines the history and main stage of multilaterial agriculture negotiation, discusses the limits of AOA in Urgruary Round, and the difference between the UR Round and Doha Round in agriculture negotiation.2. The paper further reviews the impact on agriculture sector in China of China's accession to WTO. It takes comprehensive approach which include positive and negative sides to reveal the real impact on the sector, the main findings are the accession of China to WTO directly accessleates the liberalization of agriculture trade and plays positive role in nations economic development, though with some negative effect as well.3. The paper then focus on the draft modalites impact on the agriculture sector in China along the line of pillars in WTO negotiation. On domestic support front, the auther figure out that the key to the national agriculture development policy will be the availablitiy of financial resources based on detailed support notification and mesarument. On market acces front, the auther establishes the agreed formula in the darft modalites to assess the impact on agriculture tariff in China and finds out that average tariff will be cut from 15.75% down to 10.38%, but some flexibilites like RAMs will increase the level to 12.34%. The paper studies SSM and SP as well.4. The paper then reviews the impact of draft modalites on some key WTO members which includes US, EU, India and Brazil. The result shows that the real impact is limited and the extent to which the agriculture trade reform of Doha round is far from subsitiantial. The paper further review the main negotiation groups such as US, EC, G20,G10,G33 from respective negotiation position and interests, which leads to the analysis of negotiation strategy of China.5. The paer also explores the analysis on agriculture support and protection development in China under theWTO framework from two prespective, the first is to proved negotiation strategy choice of China under multilateral framework, the second is to seek from national policy development which should be in line with WTO principle in agriculture sector in China, and propose a policy framework with four key principle of"support, protection,balance and promotion"Finally, the paper points out three areas the deserve futher study.