Study On Two-level Game In Doha Round Agricultural Negotiations And China's Strategy

Launched in November 2001, Doha Round is a big event in international community. Its utmost goal is to establish a more reasonal multilateral global trade system by pushing forward liberalization of trade in global agriculture, industry and service, aiming at promoting economic growth and social progress of WTO member countries. However, the negotiations have lasted for 8 years without any fruits but entered into prisoner's dilemma.Due to specialty and sensitivity of agriculture, all WTO members pay close attention to the development of their agricultural sector and seek to protect their farmers and maximize their own interests.The negotiations on agricultural issues have been planned at the start of Uruguay round.The three ky issues, market access, domestic support and export competition constitute the core of Doha round.It is predictable that a successful Doha Round will benefit all countries by increasing economic and social welfare. On the contrary, a bankrupt Doha Round will cause the restoration of new trade protectionism and bilateral or multilateral trade disputes, posing heavy blows to world economy by destroying globalization and world trade, especially in current time when the world economy has been harmed by American subprime mortgage crisis, international fiancial crisis, high oil price and food crisis, successively. At present, all governments are worried and depend heavily on success of Doha Round to heighten confidence of enterprises and consumers worldwide.Besides sensitivity and complexity of agriculture issues, another important factor determining the destiny of Doha Round is the coupling effect of domestic politics and diplomatic policies in international negotiations. This paper utilizes Two-Level Game theory by Rober Putnam, an American scholar, to interpret how domestic agricultural interest groups exercise pressure upon domestic legislative institutions and government foreign policies by setting EU and the Unites States as examples. By analyzing and predicting the results of the two-level games, we can reach a conclusion that Doha Round will take a road with many ups and downs but will enjoy a brigtht prospect.China is one of leading members of G20 in Doha negotiations. China needs not only to contend for its own interests but the interests of all developing countries. China has to hammer out flexible but effective negotiating strategies to insure that Doha round will turn out to be a "development round".