U.S. Statement on the Trade Policy Review of China

The eighth World Trade Organization review of the trade policies and practices of China took place on 20 and 22 October 2021.

The U.S. issued this STATEMENT which included a very long list of problems that have been identified with China’s trade regime, and all of these problems are serious ones:

• Industrial policies that skew the playing field against the foreign competition and create systemic problems for global trade;
• Severe and persistent excess capacity, especially in the steel and aluminum sectors;
• Preferential treatment for state-owned enterprises that contributes to the un-level playing field for the foreign competition;
• Forced technology transfer;
• Inadequate enforcement of intellectual property rights;
• Restrictions on foreign investment in key sectors;
• Inadequate regulatory transparency;
• An overly broad cybersecurity regime that seems designed to serve protectionist purposes;
• Cross-border data restrictions and data localization requirements;
• China’s use of forced labor in several sectors;
• China’s use of its Anti-Monopoly Law for industrial policy purposes; and
• A variety of problematic sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures.