Wto Countervailing Legal System Research

The problem of countervailing measures is completely new in China. Up until now, China has not yet practiced such measures on subsidized imports, nor has any country imposed countervailing duties on China's goods. With China's entry into WTO, most of the measures that limit imports are cancelled or become invalid. China needs some measures to counter the adverse effects from unfair foreign trade and protect domestic industry. Under such circumstances, China's government adopted a new Regulation on Countervailing Duties at the end of last year as well as four Provisional Measures governing the procedure at the beginning of this year. This shows it's not far from the day that China practices countervailing measures on subsidized imports to protect domestic industry. The reasonableness of countervailing measures lies in the unfairness of certain subsidies and the imposition of countervailing duties is to correct such unfairness, but such correction should not exceed proper limits. The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) adopted at the Uruguay Round established a perfect legal system to regulate subsidies and countervailing measures. The WTO members must comply with ASCM when using these measures. After an investigation on this Agreement and China's Regulation on Countervailing Duties, the author understands that there are several kinds of subsidies and not ali of these kinds are countervailable. For instance, non-specific subsidies and non-actionable subsidies should be tolerated. Domestic countervailing measures could only be used in circumstance of export subsidies. In addition, China's present Regulation on Countervailing Duties still has some places not in accordance with ASCM and must be improved.