| The most-favored-nation legal provisions(MFN law),is the legal carrier of "most-favored-nation treatment ".As the basic mechanism of international trade,most-favored-nation treatment has accelerated the globalization of international trade and has affected the overall pattern of world trade.The earliest most-favored-nation treatment can be traced back to the eleventh century AD.By the early 18 th century,the United Kingdom and France formally adopted the official MFN law in the signing of Utrecht in the Netherlands.At this point,the most-favored-nation law is officially on the stage of international trade and is constantly evolving.In the course of the transition of MFN law,the European unconditional MFN law and the US conditional MFN law have evolved.Although the influence of the two types of MFN law continues to change,it is still the basic types of modern MFN law.From nineteenth Century,the Qing Dynasty was bombarded and open the door by the powerful England,the tributary system and the treaty system officially began to crash.China was formally enshrined in the world's economic and political disputes,and the MFN law was closely linked to the development of China.From the early days of the Qing and Republic of China,until today,the MFN law was an important foundation of China's foreign economic and trade system.During this period,the influence of the MFN law has been changing.It has been limited to taxation and trade from the very beginning,and has continued to expand.It has spanned economic and trade areas,embedded in politics,culture,and diplomacy,and in the early period of the founding of new China,narrowed to the scope of economic and trade,and its influence in the WTO era expanded again.However,no matter how the scope of application of the MFN law changes,it has always had a profound impact on our country.It is only under the different background of the era that MFN law has had a very different influence on our country.In the late Qing Dynasty,the special background of the times made the MFN law deviate from its fair,non discriminatory value orientation and the original intention of promoting trade freedom,and became a tool for western countries to seize and encroach on the interests of China.The MFN law is in a subtle position of both "hidden" and "conspicuous" in the modern unequal treaties between China and foreign countries.The "hidden" characteristic is because the MFN law is not as infringing on China's specific national interests as the clausessuch as ground cutting,compensation,and garrison.Relying on the overarching expression of the third country,its role is more indirect and makes the late Qing Dynastyand's king and the minister who lack the knowledge of international law,do not understand the important influence of the MFN law,and easily transfer the most-favored-nation treatment.The "Significant" characteristic is due to the fact that "Most Favoured Nation",which has signed the MFN law with China,can easily take advantage of China's transfer of treaties with other countries.In this way,the most favoured nation law as the "multiplier" has greatly enhanced the western countries' interests and encroachments on China and has had a significant negative impact.The MFN law is also referred to as consular jurisdiction and tariff negotiation,the three most advantageous rights to lose in modern China.During the period of the Republic of China,the Chinese government began to reform or repeal the MFN law to limit its adverse effects.The Beijing government's revisionism diplomacy and the Nanjing National Government's abolitionist diplomacy both related to MFN law.The foreign policy of the government of the Beijing government adopted "inclusive doctrine" to avoid bilateral negotiations as far as possible,and to adopt collective consultations,which is based on the clear understanding of the MFN law.Only through collective consultations,the most favoured nation can be unanimous in giving up a particular privilege.On reaching an agreement,this privilege can really be repealed.The purpose of the Nanjing national government's abolitionist diplomacy is similar to the revisionism diplomacy.It is also gradually abolishing the adverse effects of the unequal treaties on China,but its way is more thorough.It pays more attention to the abolition of unequal treaties and the direct reduction of the number of unequal treaty signatories to safeguard China's national interests,which has also reduced the number of most favored countries and weakened the adverse effects of the MFN law.After the abolishment of the treaty,a new treaty is usually negotiated with a more fair and reasonable purpose.In these negotiations,the formation of the MFN law will often become the "focus" of the two sides,and Whether to re-enter the MFN law is also become a "sign" to judge the success or failure of this negotiation.After the founding of new China,in order to adapt to the new global economic situation,China began a difficult "return to GATT/ WTO" negotiations,and the permanent unconditional most-favored-nation treatment has become China's main negotiating goal,and finally achieved a successful outcome.The modern MFN law is based on the WTO framework.It contains an equal and non-discriminatory value core and is still the mainstreamof the international trade order today.However,the international multilateral economic negotiating organizations represented by the TPP agreement promote a higher level of trade liberalization in their organizations,which may cause trade discrimination against non-organizational members,even if these members also belong to the WTO.Such contradictions and conflicts between globalization and group-oriented trade organizations have brought new challenges to the future of MFN laws.The main body of this paper is divided into seven parts.Part one: Introduction.This part discusses the research ideas and comb the current research status of the most-favored-nation legal provisions and gradually introduces the significance of this paper and the research methods.Part two: Study on the basic problems of the most-favored-nation legal provisions.First of all,research background of the most-favored-nation legal provisions.Secondly,it clarifies the concept and evolution of the most-favored-nation legal provisions,and its connotation has a gradual enrichment process.This part also deals with the relationship between MFN laws and free trade and trade protectionism.Thirdly,we study the classification of the most-favored-nation legal provisions based on different theories and standards.Finally,an analysis of the interpretation of the most-favored-nation legal provisions relates to restrictions and misuse of the most-favored-nation legal provisions.Part three: The colonial expansion of the most-favored-nation legal provisions in China's recent history and response.First,it introduces the colonial expansion and response of MFN Law in China from 1840 to 1899.It has been divided into stages: after the first Opium War,the establishment of the MFN law system and the expansion of the MFN law system after the second Opium War,it also introduced the response of the late Qing government to the MFN law system;Second,combing diplomatic efforts to limit the colonial expansion of the MFN Law in China from 1900 to 1911;Third,it remarks on the boycott of the colonial expansion of China's MFN law in 1912-1949,and interprets the MFN law system under the influence of different policies of revisionism diplomacy and abolitionist diplomacy.Finally,this part summarizes and briefly reviews the MFN Law between China and the important Western treaties covering the entire long period from late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China.Part four: Characteristics,types and harms of most-favored-nation legal provisions in modern China.The most-favored-nation legal provisions in the recent history of Chinese andforeign treaties have the characteristics of inequality,superposition,multi field and variation,which also lead to the diversity of the most-favored-nation legal provisions in the Chinese and foreign treaties.Various types of the most-favored-nation legal provisions also have different consequences.Part five: The most-favored-nation legal provisions of modern times has developed in twists and turns.International trade is not along the idea of free trade line development,economic globalization continue to encounter resistance,the emergence of trade protectionism,which led to the promotion of trade freedom for the value of the MFN law system continue to be shocked.Until the GATT-WTO era,the MFN law system ushered in a new upsurge of development,but the TPP agreement brings some uncertainty to the future of the most-favored-nation legal provisions.Part six: Observing the rights and interests of China's modern most-favoured-nation Law from the sino-American negotiations.GATT-WTO era,China's efforts to re-entry " GATT /WTO" is to enter this global trade organization,so as to obtain a more favorable trade environment and conditions.And the key is the most-favored-nation treatment negotiations between China and the United States.This century negotiations lasted for many years,witnessed the transition from GATT to WTO,and also experienced many presidents of the United States for different domestic and foreign policies,and finally achieved satisfactory results.The establishment of permanent normal trade relations between China and the United States lays a good foundation for the establishment and development of the new international trade order.Tail: Comparing the similarities and differences between the most-favored-nation legal provisions in China's recent and modern history,we can find some enlightenments.This paper focuses on the research methods of legal history,supplemented by other social science research methods.Legal history emphasizes history as the basis,through combing and analyzing a large amount of literature data,in order to explore the research object's characteristic ? development and impact.However,the most-favored-nation legal provisions are not merely the object of study of legal history,but also involves economic,diplomatic,political,social,cultural and other fields.Therefore,this composite research object should be studied in different levels and in different fields.Specifically,the scope of this study includes the discussion of the most favoured national law in the legal layer and the conflict and struggle around the law under the different economic,diplomatic,political,socialand cultural backgrounds in various historical periods in our country,and the analysis and comparison of the effects of the most favored nation law on our country.The purpose of the study is to draw lessons from the historical review of the most favoured national law,so that China will better meet the opportunities and challenges brought about by changes in the world economic and trade order in the future. |
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