A Study Of The Characteristics Of China-targeted Temporary Trade Barriers

In recent years, while the global tariff reduction is taking place, Temporary Trade Barriers(TTBs), including Antidumping, Countervailing Duties and Safeguards, have grown fast and become the dominating measures for trade protection. Among all TTB cases happened recently, those aimed at goods and firms from China occupid a high proportion. As such, it is of great importance to understand the characteristics of TTBs towards China when guiding the action of policy makers and export firms. This paper will focus on the study of characteristics of TTBs towards China, covering the distribution of initiating countries and involved industries, and also the changing situation after China’s WTO entrance and the breakout of 2008-09 crisis. India will be an example while studying the characteristics and motivations of TTB using towards China by emerging economies.This study found that developing countries, including India and Argentina, are using TTBs towards China more and more frequently, and they become the main force of China-targeted TTB using. Traditional TTB users of the United States and the European Union are also increasing their investigations towards Chinese products and firms. The distribution of investigated products concentrate on metals, chemicals, plastics and rubber, machinery and electrical, and textiles. After China’s WTO entrance, the number of TTBs towards China declines, but the percentages of China-targeted TTB using among main users’ total TTB using amount increase significantly. After the breakout of 2008-09 crisis, the China-targeted TTBs proporations of main countries show an overall upward trend, especially those of emerging economies, who dominate the collective expansion in TTBs coverage. Taking India as an example for emerging economy, its TTBs towards China concentrate on antidumping measures and focus on industries as chemicals, machinery and electrical, and also metals. Since the mechanisms for antidumping is not mature enough, the initiation and investigation of Indian antidumping shows low transparency and high randomness.Taking all the characteristics of China-targeted TTBs into account, the government and related departments should establish the early warning mechanism for trade protection in key areas, optimize the export structure and export order, intensify the countermeasures for global economic fluctuations, and also strengthen its communications with emerging economies and form bilateral trade complementation. At the same time, export firms should respond actively to investigations. For those at the frequently investigated industries, it’s vital for the firms to regularize their behaviors while raising the added value of products and avoiding pricing war. It is also advisable for them to implement the going-out strategy and bypass the negative influences from TTBs.