Recently, Li Enheng, China's permanent deputy representative to the WTO, said in an exclusive interview, "In recent years, the trend of 'new protectionism' ideas have emerged in the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed countries, their main purposes are to suit their own political and economic needs, to maintain their dominant positions in international competition. This new protectionism has caused a serious impact on China's foreign trade development."
Li Enheng said that in recent years, with the development of economic globalization and the gradual strengthening of the multilateral trading system, the roles of traditional trade protection measures such as tariffs, quotas, permits and other means have been greatly weakened.
Many members of the WTO, especially the developed members, therefore frequently have recourse to various trade protection measures, which on the surface do not directly conflict with international rules.
These measures often appears in the face of so-called promotion of "fair trade", which are necessary to protect human health, ecological environment and the interests of consumers.
The theoretical basis, policy measures, targets and implementation results have notable differences with traditional trade protectionism, thus being dubbed as "new protectionism", "new-mercantilism" or "economic nationalism" and other names.
Li Enheng said that developed members were the main initiators of "new protectionism".
Li Enheng said, the popularity of "new trade protectionism" has increased the difficulty of Chinese enterprises developing in international market, making China's foreign trade face severe challenges. China has, for 11 years in a row, topped the list of the countries, which subject to anti-dumping investigations, with involved losses amounted to US $30-40 billion.
In addition, a small number of developed countries have continued to fabricate, reprint and spread "China threat theory , deliberately put pressures on China through multilateral and bilateral channels to sow discord between China and other developing members. These practices have induced the growth of trade protectionist sentiment in a wider scope.
China resolutely opposes the "new protectionism". Li Enheng expressed, "China hopes the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed countries to adopt a more open trade policy. It will benefit the healthy development of the world economy and trade as well as to the development of their own countries and most other developing members."
