The Study Of Green Subsidy System In China Under The WTO Framework

Green subsidy system refers to the financial support which includes environmental protection plan. It is a financial aid provided by the government, which is for the sake of public welfare of environmental protection goals or in order to make the enterprise adapt to the new environmental requirements. According to Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, subsidies can be classified as prohibited subsidies, unappealable subsidies, and specific subsidies. Green subsidy is one kind of the specific subsidies.Although green subsidy system should follow WTO basic principles such as the principle of national treatment, and non-discriminatory. The green subsidy has some characteristics, like concealment, discriminatory and restrict imports. It stipulates in the agreements under the WTO framework as a kind of exception, but its rules and explain is not very clear. And it only applies to concrete case in the WTO dispute settlement body. So it provides operational space for all countries to build their green trade barriers. China is the largest developing country in the world, which does not set up systematic green trade barriers just like some developed countries. Take the green subsidy system as an example, due to the limitation of objective conditions at present stage, economic development is the primary target. The inputs of public policy, such as environmental protection, are not enough. As a result, the government subsidy has not been put on the schedule. On the other hand, the enterprises in our country are still in the initial period. Especially after China became a member of WTO, opening the domestic market to the world, enterprises focus on an impregnable position in the international competition. The eager to pursue the maximization of economic benefit is far more beyond the awareness of undertake corporate social responsibility. What is more, industrial structure in our country is backward. High-energy-consuming and resource-dependent (high energy consumption, high pollution, resource-based) accounts for larger proportion. Regardless of the environmental cost of production mode can only lead to short-term GDP growth, but cannot be redeemed long-term environmental pollution, ecological damage, and even economic losses. The negative influence of Short-sighted is not as simple as influence exports or squeeze domestic market.Therefore, based on the introduction of present situation of green subsidy in our country and the resulting negative impact, the author does some research on the green subsidy system of developed countries and make some summaries of experiences, including the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea. According to their green subsidy system and characteristics, the author considers that in order to perfect our country’s green subsidy system, the first thing to do is to have a clearly defined in the legislation, link the government subsidies and environmental protection obligation together compulsorily. On this foundation, the author put forward some basic ideas of perfecting our country’s green subsidy system, including the transformation of the mode of trade growth, establish and improve the domestic foreign trade and environmental protection legislation, strengthen the research and use of WTO rules, union other developing countries to act in concert and so on. The author hope that through this article to illustrate the support for the construction of our country’s green subsidy system and some suggestions on how to construct it. In addition, the paper can enables the readers to clearly understand the rationality and necessity for constructing the green subsidy system.The present situation of our green subsidy system is not only that it is not clear in the legislation, low in the frequency of amending the law, backward in all kinds of environmental standards, more in specificity subsidies; but also that enterprises are not unified and regulated, which don’t establish their own guilds to stand for them when they are facing foreign competitors. As a result, it becomes a passive position when it occurs a survey or lawsuit on abroad. In this situation, it caused some adverse effects, such as bad export performance, harm to the domestic market, harm to the national health and environmental safety, intensify international friction. Because the green subsidy system is established in the agriculture at first, the green subsidy system in the typical developed countries, including the United States, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, especially the development of agricultural subsidy system, compared with that in China, there are a lot of experiences for reference. Such as mandatory hook the obligation of environmental protection together with access to government subsidies, turn the green subsidy to the non specific subsidy, high in subsidies proportion, systematic environmental protection laws and regulations. Therefore, on the basis of the research, to perfect our country’s green subsidy system, its basic ideas includes two parts. On the one hand, in domestic, to perfect the relevant legal policy of green subsidy system, to transform the mode of economic growth of enterprise, to execute in fact of cleaner production, to strengthen the environmental management system international certification standards. On the other hand, take full advantage of the WTO agreements, like the green subsidy rules, the exception clauses, and launch the WTO dispute settlement mechanism actively, enhance exchange and cooperation with other developing countries, participate in making process of international environmental conventions, international standards,...