At a meeting for the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Council for Trade in Goods held in Geneva on July 14, Chinese representatives asked WTO members to abandon using a “surrogate country” approach to prevent “dumping,” or selling a product in a country at a lower price than it is sold in its country of origin. The surrogate country method
involves using the products market price in a third country to identify whether or not a product is being dumped.
According to the Chinese representatives, the WTO provision related to the surrogate country method expires on December 11, based on Article 15 of the Protocol on the Accession of People’s Republic of China, which applied to China’s WTO accession in 2001.
“It was a promise the WTO made 15 years ago, which is a legal obligation that no member country should evade,” the representative said. “It is a totally different issue with whether or not China has market economy status.”
In China’s view, the surrogate country system has categorized more Chinese products as being “dumped” than it should have in the past 15 years.
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