Research On The Legal Issues Of Export Control Of Natural Resources Of China

With the rapid development of the world economy and international trade, the demanding and relying on the natural resources for each country has reached an unprecedented level, and the competition on the the natural resources among those countries is also getting fiercer and fiercer, which means the world has entered the age of serious natural resources famine, with increasing interests and conflicts. Many developing countries have realised all kinds of disadvantages that the traditional trade had brought. In view of the importance that the natural resources bring to the national security and the environment protection, China begins to gradually change from the developing way of exporting the natural resources for the foreign exchange to the developing strategy of limiting the exporting of the natural resources. However, although this change keeps up with the trend of the age, it causes the trade conflicts between China and other countries which demand those natural resources. These conflicts are actually each country’s fight for the economic interests and other interests hidden behind the natural resources. The natural resources export control measures that China adopts have caused widespread attention under the WTO system, and the resulted trade disputes are constantly emerging. For example, the "Coke Case", the "Raw Material Case", and the " Rare Earth Case", etc. Currently the focus lies in the conflict between China’s Natural Resources Export Control Measures and the relevant obligations that it should comply with as a member of WTO. WTO advocates trade liberalisation, and generally it prohibits all its members’behaviour of restraining the export trade, but considering the need of protecting the national economic security and the environment, GATT also made some exceptions. As one of the main resource suppliers in the world, China has taken a significant role in the global trade of the natural resources. It can be inferred that in the future, the trade conflicts that are caused by the natural resources export control measures will become more. Under this background, there’s not only a significant theoretical meaning but also an urgent practical meaning to comb and research on the natural resources export control measures and China’s relevant measures under the frame of WTO.At present, China has not issued uniform laws or regulations about export control of natural resources, but we regard constitution as the core and foreign trade law as basic law, accompanying legal systems for many regulations and rules. China’s export control system of natural resources is mainly composed of export tariffs, export quotas, export licenses and the lowest export prices. However, China has made certain commitments on the measures of export control as a precondition of entering into the WTO, such as the elimination of non-tariff measures in principle, export control should be open, fair, just and so on.Although the friction about export control of natural resources facing with China is increasing, China has abundant legal bases on the export control measures of our natural resources:China has permanent sovereignty over our natural resources and domestic trade regulation right in theory of law; In reality, the severe conditions of domestic natural resources reserves and ecological environment also put forward the demand for the export control of natural resources. In addition, the exception rules related to WTO export control of natural resources also support the export control measures of China’s natural resources.In recent years, China was frustrated in its efforts to the trade friction about export control of natural resources, such as the "raw materials case", "rare earth case" and other cases, reflecting the plight of such problems in China, such as:confusion of national legislation, low level, unable to connect to the WTO rules, existence of WTO-plus obligations and glitches in the GATT regulation itself. Therefore, China is necessary to explore new coping strategies in improving national legislations, promoting the improvement and coordination of the relevant international rules and protecting domestic natural resources based on the source given the increasing challenges of China’s trade friction about export control of natural resources. In view of the fact that China is likely to face in the future export control of natural resources more and more trade disputes, it is necessary for China to explore new coping strategies in domestic legislation.