EC Trade Law Following China's Accession to the WTO

The World Trade Organisation cannot be deemed truly international without the full participation of China, a massive market with an increasing number of highly sophisticated sectors. Yet although China did accede to the WTO in 2001, after fifteen years of negotiations WTO members persist in classifying China as a non-market economy, with all the trade restrictions such labelling entails. The EC in particular continues to curtail the flow of Chinese-European trade, despite some recent liberalisation in EC import and antidumping regulations. In this important book Dr. Hoogmartens clearly points the way to an equitable resolution of the complex problems raised by the friction between China s planned economy and EC trade policy instruments. The economic interface he constructs takes account of such crucial elements as the following: China s unfinished legal and economic reforms; the danger that the EC may develop an abusive protectionist stance; the challenge to the EC of increased Chinese competition; the persistence of Chinese state-owned enterprises; the absence of a satisfactory methodology to deal with the Chinese variant of a non-market economy; the possible adjustment of EC antidumping regulations vis-a-vis China; emergency safeguards; the role of the rule of law in trade regulation; and the translatability of Western social and political institutions.