Political And Economic Analysis Of Sino-American Photovoltaic Industry Trade Friction

Solar energy as a kind of clean energy was no pollution and could be recycled. It had become one of the key energies that countries were developing and using because of its easy exploitation and relatively high power generation efficiency after the hydro and wind. As a result, the global photovoltaic industry had a new development. The outbreak of the financial crisis led to weak world demand in 2008. Countries raced to find a new economic growth point. Photovoltaic industry had great development potential as one of the emerging industries and became an important driver that countries emerged from the financial crisis and achieved economic transformation. Each country took photovoltaic industry as a key development target and continued to increase efforts to support the photovoltaic industry through the enactment of the bill, in the form of the introduction of administrative regulations. Since then, the global photovoltaic industry entered a period of rapid development. The global photovoltaic installed new machines continued to renew a record.The demand of the American and Chinese photovoltaic installations were increasing in the support of the governments.At the same time, American and Chinese photovoltaic manufacturing capacity continued to increasing. China had become the world’s largest photovoltaic products manufacturing country in 2010, while the United States maintained a leading position in extracting polysilicon. Since the two countries in different positions of photovoltaic industry chain, free trade was more complementary than competitive between the two countries. Based on this, the Sino-American trade volume of photovoltaic products continued to expand. In 2011 the Sino-American trade volume of photovoltaic products reached a maximum. Free trade between two countries promoted effective allocation of resources in the photovoltaic industry and was important to the development of bilateral photovoltaic industry. However, from September 2010 when the United Steel Workers of America initiated proceedings to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office on new energy products importing from China including solar, wind power to January 23,2014 when the U.S. Department of Commerce announced anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on crystalline silicon photovoltaic products imported from China, four Sino-American trade frictions of photovoltaic products occurred in five years, and the anti-dumping and countervailing investigations were 3 cases. In three "double reverse" investigation, the U.S. was the main initiator and showed a strong color of unilateralism. Especially the first photovoltaic products’ "double reverse" investigation that U.S. initiated to China declined the exports of our photovoltaic products, caused our photovoltaic enterprises bankruptcy and a large number of workers losing their jobs and brought serious harm to our photovoltaic industry. Therefore, the first photovoltaic products’ "double reverse" investigation that U.S. initiated to China was the most influential and representative in all Sino-American trade frictions of photovoltaic industry.Based on the above facts, the thesis took the first photovoltaic products’ "double reverse" investigation that U.S. initiated to China as an example. By constructing democratic government - interest group frame to analyze U.S. trade policy decision-making process according to the national interest theory, pluralism theory, endogenous protection theory, the thesis in-depth analyzed the political and economic factors of "double reverse" investigation. The political and economic reasons of the "double reverse" fully represented the motivation of Sino-American trade friction of photovoltaic products and also provided the direction and thoughts for after dealing with the photovoltaic industry’ trade frictions. It helped to put forward countermeasures and the suggestions, improve the external environment of our photovoltaic industry and promote the healthy development of our photovoltaic industry.Firstly, there was brief introduction of the development of the global photovoltaic industry, and then the thesis focused on the comparison of Sino-American photovoltaic industry support policies. In addition, the Sino-American photovoltaic industries were introduced in accordance with a different focus on the photovoltaic industry chain. Then the thesis summarized the characteristics of Sino-American trade of photovoltaic products and drew a conclusion that Sino-American trade had highly complementary feature, and then introduced the Sino-American trade frictions’ features that were American unilateralism, great harm for our photovoltaic industry and strong political and economic factors. Then the thesis introduced the first Sino-American photovoltaic products anti-dumping and countervailing investigations and deeply analyzed the political, economic reasons. This thesis argued that the political reasons of Sino-American photovoltaic products anti-dumping and countervailing investigations were the American government’s consideration based on national interests and political expediency and the result of two major interest groups in the United States game. The economic reasons were Sino-American trade imbalance of photovoltaic products between the two countries, our photovoltaic industry development problem and disorderly subsidy of our photovoltaic industry. The investigations reduced the international competitiveness of Chinese photovoltaic products, discouraged exports of photovoltaic products, led to China’s photovoltaic business profits decline, even bankruptcy and triggered a chain reaction. In conclusion, they had an adverse impact on the development of China’s photovoltaic industry. Finally, according to the political and economic analysis of Sino-American photovoltaic products trade friction, the thesis put forward the corresponding suggestions and countermeasures to deal with trade friction.