A Study On The Trade Protection Policies Of Agricultural Products In China

On Dec.11.2002, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).Since then, agriculture in China has not been so weak just as it has been thought to be in the past 4 years. Open market has brought much more opportunities to the development of agricultural product trade, which promotes the development of the agriculture. Meanwhile, the shock to the agricultural product trade comes to appear. In 2004, the balance of our agricultural product trade was deficit, which had been surplus for nearly twenty years, and the deficit was 9 percent of the agricultural product trade volume that year. Will the deficit makes China's"agriculture, peasant, countryside"problems much worse? How to protect our farmers'benefits in an open market after China's entry into the WTO? In this new situation, it is urgent for us to research how to protect our agricultural product trade reasonably and effectively. So, this dissertation adopts analysis ways that are used in international economics, development economics, microeconomics, macroeconomics and political economics for reference, and points out problems exiting in the development of our agriculture and agricultural product trade. What's more, the dissertation put forward why our protection policies of agricultural product trade need to be perfect. On the basis of these analyses, the dissertation gives some relevant advices on how to adjust protection policies of agricultural product trade in China.Since the nineteenth century, the protection on agricultural product trade has been popular in the developed countries. Pushed by the WTO, the liberalization of the agricultural product trade becomes more and more prosperous. But it is not satisfied until now. Although traditional policies have been changed in the developed countries, they are protection policies in the nature. Nowadays, their governments have built up perfect policy system to protect their agricultural product trade, which are based on the advantages of their natural endowment, economy and technology. Though protection policies in the developed countries are facing much criticism, they really protect farmers'profits effectively, and promote the development of their agriculture. Deeply research on the protection theories and policies of trade, especially agricultural product trade, in the developed countries will do good to recognize the necessity of carrying out protection policies under the particular historic situation, it will help us to learn to develop in competition and protect in compromise, and we can learn to use new measures to protect agricultural product trade.Entering into the WTO, Chinese government made some promises about agricultural product trade seriously. So we must take those promises and WTO's other related regulations into account when we choose what policies should be used to protect agricultural product trade. The WTO is opposed to trade protection no matter what form it is in principle, and requires its parties to reduce even to remove their trade barrier so as to realize trade liberalization. However, the WTO still permits its parties to use some kinds of protection policies of agricultural product trade, especially the developing country parties. It will take much time abolish such policies. Protection on the agricultural product trade will still be normal in a long future time.Restrained by multi-trade regulations, international protection policies of agricultural product trade trend to be technical, green, political, dynamic and informative. So it is an important problem for us to study how to protect our agricultural product trade reasonably, legally and effectively.The dissertation has a historical research in agricultural product trade in China, and has a positive analysis on comparative advantage of Chinese agricultural products. It draws a conclusion that we should not be optimistic about the conditions of our comparative advantages. Based on the continuous decrease of the agricultural products'RCA in China and the urgent demand of the development of our agriculture and countryside, we can't overlook the problems existing in the China's agricultural production trade, and we must research on the foreign and domestic agricultural product trade protection policies and try to find out suitable protection policies which accord both with the related regulations of the WTO and with the China's present conditions, so as to keep the society's permanent stabilization and sustainable development.That China's government has neglected agriculture and treated it on bias for a long time in the past should answer for those problems which existing in the development of agricultural product trade and agriculture. In recent years, especially after the third session of the sixteenth national people's congress, the central committee of the Communist Party of China insists on looking human-beings as foundation, puts forward a comprehensive, harmonious, sustainable, scientific development view, and is active to build up a stable, vigorous, harmonious society. The government is concerned more about the development of our agriculture than before and tries to support its development. Our government has also begun reforming present protection policies. However, we think the reform is still not enough. The present protection policies of agricultural product trade themselves have some problems that need to be solved. For example, the policy structure is not rational, the policies are not effective, and they can't coordinate with other policies very well. What's more, there are some conflicts between our policies and the agricultural agreements of the WTO. So, these policies can't protect our agricultural product trade effectively, and they need to be perfect.In a word, the author thinks it is an important question that can't be neglected at present and in the future to study the related regulations of the WTO and the successful experiences of the developed countries seriously in order to build up a rational and effective protection policy system of agricultural product trade. Finally, the dissertation gives some concrete advice on the building up the protection policy system of agricultural product trade from four aspects: import control policies, export promotion policies, domestic support policies and active negotiations with WTO's other parties.