Study On Mode And Practice Of China Customs’ International Cooperation

With the the growing attentions on the security and facilitation of global trade,greater importance has been attached to customs cooperation which is a key link of thetrade supply chain. On the one hand, it’s the global business community’s wish to reducecustoms clearance time and formalities, to further simplify the tedious customs clearancedocuments, thereby help to reduce the cost of international trade. On the other hand, toeffectively address the growing global rampant smuggling and international crime as wellas other illegal acts, countries need to carry out more international customs cooperation.Customs cooperation in recent years has been rapidly developed thanks to lessinvolvement in transferring sovereignty. Countries are more likely to agree on contentsand ways of cooperation.Globalization is a basic condition for customs international cooperation.Globalization and international interdependence, leading to a sharp increase incross-border crime are the main drivers of rising demand of customs internationalcooperation. International Customs are facing common challenges such as cross-bordersmuggling and organized crime great demands of trade facilitation and internationalsecurity needs, improved effectiveness of customs border enforcement cooperationmechanisms. All these are direct cause of establishing customs international cooperationmechanism. Adjustment of Customs function is the impetus for customs internationalcooperation mechanisms. Customs needs to adapt itself with international system duringits modernization process, and it needs to promote exchanges and cooperation in theinternational community. However, due to the limitations of Customs functions andnational sovereignty, the department itself has become increasingly difficult to cope alonewith transnational crime and meet the need for trade liberalization and facilitation. Thus,customs authorities need to carry out more effective cooperation, with help frominternational institutions and organizations which have rules for countries, so as topromote a global solution to the problem, and all this has also promoted theestablishment of customs international cooperation mechanisms. Against this backdrop,China Customs needs new mode and solution to adjust itself in the bilateral and multilateral cooperation so as to better tackle the global challenge and increasing trade.This is the focus of the study, and its main contents are as follows.Based on theories of the interdependence, national interests and internationalinstitution of international politics theory and international mechanisms of theinternational economics theory, in-depth analysis has been conducted on enablingenvironment of customs international cooperation as well as the feasibility andimportance of customs international cooperation mechanisms, and also, the demand,supply and the balanced of customs international cooperation mechanisms. The studyalso contains exploration on internal impetus and main factors of customs internationalcooperation, which provides a good basis for the later the study on international customscooperation model.Second, the evolution of mode and subject of international cooperation. With thegrowing global economy and trade, international customs are increasingly confrontedwith international cooperation, it’s the stakeholders of the global trade supply chain’swish to further strengthen customs liaison to carry out pragmatic cooperation and topromote trade security and facilitation. In order to provide a clear picture on the model ofcustoms international cooperation, the history of customs cooperation model from amacro and analysis on international cooperation of main countries and regions from amicroscopic point of view have been conducted. Developed countries in their customscooperation, have paid more attention to border protection, security and facilitation ofsupply chain, greater well-being for domestic enterprises. All these have become keyfactors in the selection of customs cooperation model. Besides, the current internationalcustoms cooperation mode also has some prevalent problems. The World CustomsOrganization in recent years have put up many cooperation framework andrecommendations for customs cooperation which call for better national regulatorycapabilities of national customs authorities, but due to the fact that theserecommendations, agreements and initiative do not have the force of law, therefore is stillvery difficult for countries to achieve an effective and comprehensive regulatorycooperation. Meanwhile, gaps between countries in economic development level, socialsystems and cultural differences in ideology are obstacles for customs cooperation. Thecustoms authorities of emerging market countries should further louder their voices and become more active in cooperation, rather than being observers of internationalcooperation mechanisms from outside.Third, in-depth study on the history of China’s customs’ international cooperation,operational model and problems. Chinese Customs, during its management innovationand reform process, has actively absorbed good international practices; many innovativemodels of international cooperation have been introduced. Traditional Customscooperation, such as mutual administrative assistance is normally seen in China customs’cooperation with countries in their early cooperation, based on the mutual administrativeassistance agreement signed by both sides, aiming to tackle issues like low commodityprices, fraud, smuggling and other criminal acts together. As in the21st century,internationally accepted norms and framework have become new focuses and trends ofcustoms mutual assistance and cooperation. After the “9.11" attack on USA, countries ofthe world, especially developed countries are aware of the growing importance ofcustoms’ non-traditional functions and have been developed new projects to ensurehomeland security. Countries as United States, European Union have invited Chinacustoms to work together in the fight against terrorism in a number of occasions. ChinaCustoms responded actively to United States and the European Union’s cooperation inthis regard. China now has formed its own characteristic mode of cooperation innon-traditional functions. However, the existing customs of model " tackles moreproblems and makes less strategic planning.Besides, the existing cooperative modelcannot effectively meet bilateral cooperation needs, and resolve problem of unbalanceddevelopment, and couldn’t balanced interests in counter-terrorism cooperation. Also,cooperation in multilateral platform effect is not effective, which has great room forimprovement. Last but not least, regional cooperation mechanisms with Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan still need to be upgraded. Given this, it is necessary to reform theexisting customs cooperation model. In2009, Sheng Guangzu, former minister of Chinacustoms suggested establishment of a new customs cooperation model as “mutualrecognition of control results, mutual assistance and mutual information exchange". Butin the real job this new model only remains as a hierarchy concept, no in-depth analysisand construction of the model has been conducted. Considering this, the following articleputs forward a new framework as “mutual recognition of control results, mutual assistance and mutual information exchange” and its practical steps. Fourth, a new modelof international cooperation is built in order to better apply to the international customscooperation. Customs international cooperation can be divided into bilateral cooperation,regional cooperation and multilateral cooperation based on the number of partiesinvolved and the geographical features. In general, bilateral cooperation is the bestembody of sovereignty, so it’s easily affected by the country’s internal policies; whilemultilateral cooperation is on the opposite side, thanks to the fixed mechanisms andprinciples in the multilateral platform, the participating countries could anticipate itsvariability. Customs cooperation model will be eventually examined in these channels. Atthe same time, the application should be considered together with the country’sinternational position and strategy. Therefore, based on the innovation of the internationalcooperation model, new suggestions have been put forward for better multilateral,bilateral and regional cooperation of China customs. In the multilateral platform, ChinaCustoms could constructively deepen its involvement in international affairs andformulation of customs international rules, consolidate and enhance China Customs ‘svoice and influence in the World Customs Organization. On the bilateral platform, ChinaCustoms could conduct in-depth and balanced cooperation with major trading partnercountries and regions, such as the U.S, the EU and Russia under the framework of“mutual recognition of control results, mutual assistance and mutual informationexchange", thereby contributing to the World Customs development. Meanwhile, effortsshould be made to its bilateral corporation in Asia, Africa, Latin America and otherdeveloping regions in concern of cooperation model. Besides, in view of the separatecustoms territory status of Macau and Hong Kong, China Customs could conduct morecomprehensively deep cooperation with them. Furthermore, China Customs shouldactively participate in regional customs cooperation mechanism to play a greater role andto promote the new model of “mutual recognition of control results, mutual assistanceand mutual information exchange", so as to contribute to the common development of theregion.