| In recent years,the issue of state-owned enterprises(hereinafter referred to as SOEs)has become a hot topic not only in the negotiation of international economic and trade rules,but also in the documents of WTO reform proposed by various countries.Previously,the regulation of subsidies to SOEs has been based on the anti-subsidy rules under the WTO system.Because the WTO upholds the principle of ownership neutrality,there are no rules specifically applicable to subsidies for SOEs.However,with the implementation of the "competition neutrality",which aims to eliminate the competitive advantages enjoyed by SOEs due to their ownership and create a level playing field between SOEs and private enterprises,the issue of subsidies for SOEs began to attract much attention.Australia,the OECD have proposed their own version of "competition neutrality".In many bilateral and multilateral trade and investment negotiations,the United States has also vigorously promoted the subsidy provisions of SOEs,which take the competition neutrality policy as the spiritual core.In particular,the United States has established Non-commercial Assistance in the TPP(now known as CPTPP)negotiations,which have strengthened the subsidy discipline of SOEs.Although the United States has withdrawn from the CPTPP,it does not mean that it has given up the regulation of subsidies to SOEs.Instead,the United States has continued to sign USMCA with Mexico and Canada.The USMCA chapter on SOEs continues the style of the CPTPP,retaining the Non-commercial Assistance and expanding the scope of application of the rules.Subsequently,in the WTO reform documents proposed by various countries,the regulation of international subsidy rules on SOEs has again drawn great attention.Therefore,for the increasingly strict rules of subsidies for SOEs,as a large country with a large number of SOEs,how to minimize the negative impact of the new development of subsidy rules on China is worth discussing.Firstly,in the face of many versions of the competition neutrality policy,China should put forward the Chinese version of the competition neutrality policy on the basis of analyzing the similarities and differences of the different versions of the competition neutrality policy,which helps to establish the theoretical basis for participating in international negotiations.Secondly,we should further promote classification reform of SOEs,standardize the subsidies for SOEs,and improve the transparency of the subsidies for SOEs.The most important thing is that we should actively participate in the negotiation of international economic and trade rules to avoid being marginalized in the new round of international law-making process.In order to clarify the above problems,this paper intends to analyze the new development and countermeasures of the subsidy rules of SOEs from three aspects:The first part mainly discusses the particularity of SOEs in countervailing rules,and introduces the competitive neutrality policy and the dual status of SOEs in international subsidy rules.Taking competitive neutrality as an important theoretical origin,this paper will mainly introduce the three versions of competitive neutrality policies,namely the Australian version,the OECD version and the American version,and compare the similarities and differences of these three versions of competitive neutrality policies from the aspects of the background and connotation.At the same time,this part also discusses the particularity of SOEs in countervailing rules,and introduces the dual identities of subsidy providers and recipients owned by SOEs.The second part introduces the concrete performance of international subsidy rules to strengthen the regulation of SOEs:First,the speed of international law-making has been accelerated.The OECD promoted the competition neutrality policy as an international advocacy rule.Later,western countries,led by the United States,promoted the subsidy rules of SOEs as a hard constraint rule within the scope of the agreement by signing regional agreements such as CPTPP and USMCA.Second,the scope of public body has expanded.There is a dispute about "government function standard" and "government control standard" for the public body under WTO system.In the countervailing cases,the European and American countries adopted the standard of government control to identify our SOEs as public bodies,which expanded the scope of public body.Later,the European and American countries have simply bypassed the controversy over public body and directly stipulated that SOEs are equal to public body in the Non-commercial Assistance,thus expanding the scope of public body.Third,as recipients of subsidies,SOEs are strictly regulated by international subsidy rules.Under the WTO subsidy discipline,SOEs and other enterprises have nodifferences,also regulated by "Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures"(hereinafter referred to as SCM Agreement).But competitive neutrality policy holds that SOEs have close ties to the government and are likely to receive more implicit subsidies than others enterprises when receiving subsidies,thus distorting the market for fair competition.Therefore,CPTPP and USMCA established a new subsidy rule named "Non-commercial Assistance",and conducted special regulation on the acceptance of subsidies by SOEs.In addition,the USMCA updates the recognition standards of SOEs,thus expanding the application scope of Non-commercial Assistance and bringing more "SOEs" into the scope of regulation.Fourth,the scope of subsidy regulation is extended to the subsidy activities of SOEs in the financial sector.In the chapter of SOEs,USMCA added the prohibition of subsidies by SOEs,and extended the scope of subsidy regulation from the financial sector to the financial sector;In addition to the USMCA agreement,WTO reform documents proposed by the European and American countries also lists the particularly harmful subsidies that should be prohibited,which will have a direct impact on the future formulation of WTO rules related to SOEs.To sum up,international subsidy rules strengthen the regulation of SOEs from the above four aspects.The third part puts forward China’s current countermeasures from both domestic and international perspectives:In the international perspectives,in the face of the "public body" dispute,our country should continue to adhere to "government function standard",and oppose "government control standard" adopted by the European and American countries;and,under the background of the accelerating international lawmaking,China should take the initiative to participate in the negotiation of regional economic and trade rules,actively put forward the WTO reform plan,and grasp the initiative of law-making.In the domestic perspectives,China should launch the Chinese version of the competition neutrality policy as soon as possible and establish the theoretical basis for participating in international negotiations.At the same time,China should continue to promote the classification reform of SOEs to conform to competition neutrality policy,improve the transparency of SOEs,and promote the establishment of a financial market of fair competition in China,so as to cope with the expanding scope of Non-commercial Assistance. |
