Research On Competitive Neutrality System

In recent years,China’s laws and regulations concerning market economy activities,government work reports,opinions and spirits of central government meetings have reflected the clear orientation of establishing a competition-neutral system.During the 14 th Five-Year Plan period,there are still blockages in the goal of achieving an efficient combination of effective market and effective government to stimulate the vitality of various market entities,such as the low transparency of state-owned enterprises,the lack of a competitive neutral environment for private enterprises,and the imperfect norms of administrative monopoly and fair competition review.The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment reached in December 2020 is the first time that China has included specific competition neutrality provisions in an economic and trade agreement.The agreement injects more flexible and balanced elements into the norms of competitive neutral international law on the basis of reconciling the differences between different economic systems.It is the inherent demand of China’s economic development to establish a localized competitive neutrality system and include the Chinese version of the competitive neutrality clause in the trade agreements so as to grasp the right to speak in rule-making.The legislative practice and judicial practice of the EU’s competitive neutrality system can provide us with some useful reference.The EU legal system does not have a system named after competition neutrality,but its intra-regional legal norms(centered on Articles 106-109 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU)and relevant provisions of foreign trade agreements(competition policy provisions,state-owned enterprises provisions,subsidy provisions,transparency provisions)are consistent with the goal of competition neutrality,aiming to balance the boundary between government intervention and free market through rules designed to achieve the goal of a level playing field market environment and to protect the EU internal market from distortions.At the same time,under the background of global value chain competition and the rise of emerging economies,there is a tendency to deviate from the EU’s competitive neutrality position in external economic activities in order to maintain the international competitiveness of EU industries,such as the Proposal for a Regulation on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market and the Statements of the US,Europe and Japan on the reform of state-owned enterprises and subsidy rules under the WTO framework.This paper consists of five chapters.The first chapter introduces the background and significance of the study,composes the academic history of related studies at home and abroad based on the literature review,briefly summarizes the research methodology,innovations and shortcomings of the thesis.The second chapter reveals the development of the competition-neutral system from a domestic law-level competition policy tool to an international economic and trade rule,outlines and summarizes the characteristics of the current multi-polar development of the competition-neutral system,and explains the essence of the competition-neutral system and the reasons behind its widespread implementation.The third chapter analyzes the EU’s competition neutrality system for regulating intra-regional economic activities.It explains how the EU identifies and deals with competition neutrality in its territory at three levels: the general application of competition rules,the state aid rules,and transparency requirements.The fourth chapter examines the EU’s competition neutrality system in its foreign economic and trade activities.It elaborates from three perspectives: competition neutrality provisions in EU trade and investment agreements,legal tools for regulating foreign enterprises(especially state-owned enterprises),and statements of claim in regional and multilateral frameworks.It focuses on EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment and Proposal for a Regulation on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market.The fifth chapter is the main part of this paper.This chapter first summarizes the characteristics of the EU competition neutrality system based on the contents of Chapters three and four;then,it analyzes the motivation and necessity of the localization of the competition neutrality system;finally,on the basis of the useful experience of the EU legal practice,it puts forward suggestions and countermeasures to improve China’s competition neutrality system at two levels: the domestic law path and the international law path.At the domestic law level,it is necessary to clarify the definition of competition neutrality,define government aid,improve the transparency of state-owned enterprises and government aid,refine the exemption criteria of fair competition review,strengthen administrative monopoly supervision and improve the operation procedures of the fair competition review system.At the international law level,it is necessary to promote a competition-neutral system with the help of domestic free trade ports,include competition-neutral provisions in trade agreements that conform to China’s realistic national conditions and interests,actively participate in the formulation of international economic and trade rules,strengthen regional cooperation,and reduce the negative impacts of competition neutrality on China.