Europe and America resort to WTO to intensify competition for China's scarce resources

The European Union and the United States 23rd jointly demanded negotiations with China under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, claiming that China's restrictions on exports of a variety of scarce raw materials violate its WTO commitments.　　This reflects a tougher competition for resources in Europe and the US.　　Threatening to take further steps the European Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton said in a statement that China's export restrictions on raw materials, such as export quotas and export taxes, distort competition, driving up prices in the international market and making EU companies more difficult under the current economic crisis. The European Commission claims that the EU has repeatedly negotiated with the Chinese side over the past few years but failed to find a satisfactory solution to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.　　On the same day, the U.S. government also proposed to discuss China's export restrictions on raw materials.　　The EU's request for consultation specifically includes China's bauxite, export quantity restrictions imposed on coke, sic and zinc, export taxes on yellow phosphorus, bauxite, coke, metal silicon, magnesium, manganese and zinc, export minimum price and export contract approval procedures, and other unreasonable requirements related to the export of raw materials.　　The European Commission said the European Union's imports of raw materials from China last year amounted to € 4.5 billion, which were widely used in the steel, aluminium and chemical industries, which accounted for about 4% of the industrial output, and about 500,000 per cent of the employed population, as China's export-restricting policy could be affected. In the European Union's view, China's export restrictions on raw materials are like choking off the necks of European Union companies, as many EU companies rely heavily on imports of these raw materials.　　For some of the raw materials involved, China is the world's leading supplier, making it impossible for the EU to choose.　　The EU believes that because of China's restrictions on raw materials exports, through the minimum price and export tax artificially high prices of raw materials sold to the international market, directly damage the competitiveness of the EU's downstream industries, and even in a few cases completely cut off the key investment in the EU industry, leading to these EU enterprises and their Chinese counterparts China advocates that the export of these high energy-consuming, highly polluting products should be restricted to protect the environment and resources, and that under the WTO agreement, it still has the right to impose export restrictions on products such as nearly hundred kinds of raw materials.　　But the EU claims that China's restrictions are outside the scope of the permits.　　The European Commission warned that if the negotiations failed, the EU would reserve the right to make a decision on the establishment of a panel of experts under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.　　To implement a new strategy for global resources The EU's move, on the one hand, reflects the worsening of the economic situation within the EU after the outbreak of the international financial crisis, as well as the EU's strategy of intensifying global resource contention in recent years.　　The European Commission, in its press release of the day, noted that China was the single biggest challenge to the EU's foreign trade policy and that trade barriers imposed by China had deprived EU companies of significant export opportunities. With the European Commission's October 2006 issue of China's trade policy document as a sign, along with the Chinese economic strength, the European Union is increasingly treating China as a competitor and is hardening its stance on dealing with Sino-EU economic and trade disputes, and the financial and economic crisis has undoubtedly exacerbated this trend. On the same day, the European Union, responding to protectionist demands from its steelmakers, decided to impose a 24% official anti-dumping duty on Chinese metal wire rods for a period of 5 years.　　It was one of several anti-dumping actions by the EU against Chinese steel products.　　Notably, the European Commission, which launched a new strategy paper last November to increase global raw material competition and target China, is a concrete manifestation of the strategy, with the United States joining forces. In the new strategy paper, the European Commission recommended that the EU should first determine which raw materials are essential and to protect the EU's raw material supply in three major ways.　　That is, at the international level, to eliminate the restrictive practices of third countries in the trade in raw materials, to ensure EU imports, to tap into the EU's internal resources, to promote the sustainable supply of raw materials, and to improve resource use efficiency and recycling.　　On the international front, the new strategy advocates that the EU should launch strategic "raw material diplomacy" for some major industrial countries and resource-rich countries, and include content on raw material supply and sustainable management in all bilateral and multilateral trade agreements and regulatory dialogues, which can be implemented at the two levels of the EU and its Member States.　　The new strategy also suggests that the EU should lock in third countries ' trade in raw materials and use all possible means, including recourse to the World Trade Organization dispute settlement mechanism, to force the other party to rectify it. The United States and the European Union have filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over China's restrictions on exports of some industrial raw materials. China's policy on raw material exports is in line with WTO rules, according to the head of the Ministry of Commerce.