Trade Liberalization In Primary Products And Its Influence On China

For a quite long period the world trade in agriculture products has disassociated from the multilateral trade system of WTO (former GATT) and has been out of the bounds of trade rules and regulations. The multilateral negotiations on Uruguay Round initially put the trade in agriculture products fully under the regulation of world multilateral trade system. The agricultural agreement fully promoted the process of free trade. Just as the famous sayings goes, "It takes more than one cold day for the river to freeze three chi deep", it will take more than one negotiation to clean off the obstacles to the free trade in agriculture products. WTO continued its efforts in this hard but unsurpassed work with another negotiation-Doha Round. Because of serious differences and conflicts in agriculture among different countries, the new negotiation in agriculture got into stalemate in some period. However the frame agreement on August 2004 is an icebreaker to that stalemate. And the trade liberalization in agriculture products continued its stumbling ahead under the multilateral trade system. As a large country of international trade in agriculture products, China can not avoid the deep influence of the trade liberalization in world trade. Especially after China's entry into WTO and the further opening to the outside world of China's agricultural sectors, China will inevitably face a severer competition in world market. How to use the game rules of WTO to better protect and develop China's agriculture and the trade in agriculture products has become the focus of many scholars' attention and study. The author also wants to give her contribution to this issue, though maybe far from being adequate. Thus this thesis came into being. It mainly covers four chapters just as the following shows: Chapter one covers the theoretical analysis on trade liberalization in agriculture products. It mainly shows the inevitability and necessity of trade liberalization in agriculture products with the analysis from comparative cost theory, game theory, the economical influences of tariffs and export subsidies. Then it gives a detailed analysis on the motivity and resistance to the trade liberalization in agriculture products. Chapter two gives an introduction of the course of trade liberalization in world agriculture products. From GATT to WTO, from Uruguay Round to Doha Round, the trade liberalization in agriculture products had an extremely hard experience, but it never stopped its steps ahead. Then it gives a forecast of the future of the new round negotiation in agriculture. Chapter three is the key part of this thesis. It first gives a literature review on China's participation in the trade liberalization in world agriculture products. Then is the analysis on the trade liberalization in world agriculture products' impact on China's trade in agriculture products. At last it further analyzes the changes in China's comparative advantages in agriculture products during the past 20 years with the help of Revealed Comparative Advantage index. Chapter four mainly has a discussion on China's development strategy in agriculture products through using the successful experience of other countries for reference, especially the case analysis on Japan and Brazil.