WTO Agriculture Agreement And Domestic Support System Of China

As a technical term and a comprehensive system,Domestic Support is very critical to the development of agriculture of any country as well as its farmer's income.Therefore,almost every country has established a domestic support system in order to support the agriculture,more or less. Because of the possible negative impact on international trade of agricultural products,a somewhat loose discipline on domestic support was introduced into the Agreement of Agriculture(hereinafter AoA ) of WTO.Being a newly accessed member of WTO,China was obligated to make some commitments which would have an adverse influence on its agriculture,and might make its agriculture more vulnerable in the impending future.As far as it is very urgent to reconstruct a reasonable agricultural domestic support sys,tem for China,according to the status in quo of China's agriculture,and conforming to its treaty obligations under the AoA of WTO,the author chooses it as the theme of this dissertation.Bearing this aim in mind,the author first explores the foundation of agricultural support,and gives a brief comparison among different forms of agricultural support.After an intensive analyses of the domestic support discipline provided by AoA,and then a study on the legal systems of domestic support in some of the WTO members,the author puts forward his innovative proposal on the reconstruction of China's agricultural domestic support system,which should be based on the theory of Agricultural multi functionality.Besides the introduction and the conclusion,this dissertation includes four chapters.Chapter one first gives a brief introduction of the foundation of Agricultural support,i.e the theory of agricultural multifunctionality,of agriculture being a basis of economical development,and the theory of agriculture's weak positon due to the nature of farming,such as cyclical prices,variable production needs,and unpredictable weather,etc. Governments generally mitigate these risks by making certain guarantees to agricultural producers.There are diverse measures which could be and have been taken to support the agriculture and the farmers.Compared with others,domestic supportive measures could be more transparent and less costly.However,exorbitant use of domestic support would make it inevitable for the introduction of other forms of agricultural support.The rules regulating the domestic support policies or measures are known as the least binding part of AoA because this part has been watered down by a number of last-minute compromises in the Uruguay Round Negotiation process.Due to the nature of imbalance,it becomes one of the focuses in the new agricultural negotiation,namely Doha Round negotiation.After an intensive exploration of the disciplines about domestic support in the AoA,the author gives some predictions on its potential development in the Doha Round process.Furthermore,taking account of its inherent linkage with the theory of agricultural multifunctionality,some attention is to be paid to the issue of agricultural multifunctionality in the Doha Round.The second chapter firstly gives a summary of the usage of various domestic supports.After that,the author makes a comparison among the legal systems of domestic support in some developed members,mainly the EC,US and Japan,and those in some developing members of WTO, namely South Korea,Brazil and India.Although it was found that we can learn a lot from these countries,a reasonable domestic support system could not be based on huge governmental expenditures or financial outlays.Moreover,it is appropriate for developing countries to spend more money than the past to support their agriculture,and to make a transition from the discriminatory agricultural policies to a more supportive one.In the third chapter,the author firstly summarizes the overall deficiencies in the present domestic support system of China.Then a detailed analyse is made as to the deficiencies of some sub-system of the domestic support system.The success of domestic support system should be accompanied by the development of the Farm's Association and financial support system,so some issues related to the Farm's Association and financial support system are discussed in the following part of the third chapter.The author seeks in the last chapter to reconstruct the domestic support system of China.Firstly,by the comparison between sustainable development and multifunctional development of agriculture,it is the author's view that a multifunctional agriculture should be the fundamental pattern of China's agriculture development and the reconstruct of China's domestic support system should be based on the theory of multifunctionality of agriculture.Secondly,the author puts forward the principles that should be abided when reconstructing the domestic support system of China,which include,inter alia,(1) coordination of the market regulation and governmental intervention;(2) moderate support;(3) harmonizing different rural areas,with individual development levels;(4) in conformity with China's international obligations under the WTO. Thirdly,Chinese government should make full use of the De Minimis levels of support which does not exceed 8.5%of the value of production of either the specific product or of total agricultural production,as the case may be,is not required to be included in the calculation of the Current Total AMS,and strengthen the green box support to the agriculture and the producer.Fourthly,the author pointed out that the legal system of domestic support to agriculture must be reconstructed in order to enhance the support to Chinese agriculture effectively.In this domestic support legal system,the Constitution Law is the fundamental law,and Agricultural Law or Farm Bill would be the primary law,and Agricultural Domestic Support Law is the special law which regulates the comprehensive domestic support projects,from the approval,the implementation,to the completion and the following check and final acceptance.Lastly,lots of money would be invested in the domestic support to agriculture,so a strictly supervision system should be established for the purpose of ensuring that all the financial outlay could be confined to its best utilization.