An Analysis Of U.S.-China Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products Anti-dumping And Countervailing Case

PV industry, as a renewable energy industry with a faster development, attracts more and more attention all around the world. Many countries like China and the U.S. take the development of PV into a future strategic energy. They support their own PV industry and encourage enterprises to expand domestic and international markets.The trade between China and the U.S. PV industry greatly improve the efficiency of resource allocation, to alleviate the imbalance between supply and demand. In2011, the new PV installed capacity of China and the United States rank the third and fourth place respectively, showing a strong growth momentum. However, the global prices of crystalline silicon cells and modules dropped sharply, coupled with intense competition in the industry. Many large-scale PV companies in the United States were in danger of cuts or even went bankrupt. They claimed that excessive competition from Chinese manufacturers depressed the market price, leaving small profit margin to the U.S. producers. On Ocobert19,2011, SolarWorld Industries America and other six solar companies in America filed a joint complaint, claiming that Chinese enterprises receive government’s illegal subsidies and dump photovoltaic products to the U.S market. The United States government launched its first investigation on Chinese manufacturers for their anti-dumping behaviors, and the Chinese PV industry for its countervailing behaviors. Finally, for the first time, the U.S. government determined to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese crystalline silicon cells and modules exports to the U.S.This thesis chooses Sino-U.S. trade friction of crystalline silicon photovoltaic products as its inquiry, and aims at giving a detailed case study to explore the reasons for the occurrence of the case from the perspective of the stakeholders, the impact of trade protectionism perspective, and puts forward proposals. In this paper, a detailed analysis of the PV anti-dumping and countervailing case has important significance and practical value. It helps to forecast the trend of Sino-US PV trade, to improve trade environment, and promote the healthy development of China PV industry. It is structured as follows. Firstly, this paper introduces the theory of strategic trade policy, trying to find the cause of the theoretical basis of the case. After brief descriptions of the background to the case, this thesis sorts out an overview of the interests of stakeholders in this case and make a summary of the disagreements, which intends to explore the deep reasons and effects of the case. In this case, we can find the root cause of the trade friction from both sides. For the U.S., its special trade policy to accommodate interest groups and the intention to protect their own PV industry push United States launch this investigation. Also, severe overcapacity in Chinese PV market provides with the United States as an excuse to attack. However, each trade friction is a "double-edged sword". This case promotes the Chinese PV industry to restructure as soon as possible. Of course, the U.S. PV industry chain can not avoid a big shock during the trade friction. Finally, with a better understanding of this case, and combined with the characteristics of China’s PV market status, this thesis intends to make several recommendations for the PV enterprises and the industry, preparing them to cope with trade conflicts and investigations.