地理拓展课期末论文

Trade Frictions between US and China【Abstract】Along with the development of economic globalization, on the one hand, it deepens economic exchanges between countries and economic cooperation. On the other hand, it has increased economic conflict between countries and economic friction. The economic and trade relation between China and America is not only important for the two countries, but also important for the world. However, in recent years, the trade frictions among two countries have happened frequently, which affected the healthy development of themselves and other countries. Therefore, it is a major issue to analyze the reasons of Sino-US trade frictions and find the effective measures for easing the trade frictions.【Key Words】trade frictions; actual cases; causal analysis; countermeasures1.DefinitionTrade friction, refers to that in the international trade, between the trade process, one country’s trade activity harms another country’s industry or one country's sustained trade surplus and another country’s sustained trade deficits in trade balance.Sino-US trade friction is an important issue in Sino-US economic relations. Trade friction occurs mainly in two aspects. First, China's export sector which has a comparative advantage. Second, China’s import sector which has no advantage in the field of knowledge and technology. The former is essentially competitive, while the market is not fully functioning in the latter. Their impact on the economic well-being and long-term development to the two countries are different. There are always trade conflicts between the two countries in the steel, tire and car.Sino-US trade friction has been continued. From 2003 to 2005, the United States unilaterally provoked a series of trade friction and it cast a dark shadow to the Sino-US trade relations. Trade war seemed imminent, the two countries got into an unprecedented trade friction period. Sino-US trade friction, as a part of the Sino-US economic and trade relations, varies with the development of Sino-US political relations and the international situation.2.BackgroundSino-US trade relations has been developing with twists and turns since the two countries established trade relations. The annual MFN deliberation is a true portrayal about the Sino-US trade relations before China entered into WTO. After China entered into WTO, the frequency of trade friction increases as a result of the development of bilateral economic and trade relations. And the United Statesheightened trade frictions. US companies’ dumping charges more than 20% towards Chinese competitors. Although the two countries have huge economic interests with each other, as a result of the huge US and Chinese market, as well as the increasingly close economic and trade relations. There are also intense trade friction, which can not help but will make people worry about the prospects of Sino-US economic and trade relations. US trade is not a purely economic decision, but the balance of the economic interests and political realities.Trade friction between the United States and China over everything from cars to chemicals will increase in the coming years as the world's biggest importer and exporter buy and sell more of each other's goods, the World Trade Organization's director general said.The United States and China are engaged now in a series of trade spats over issues such as steel, poultry, patents and Hollywood films. Google's threat to pull out of China over concerns about censorship and security also could sour relations between the two countries.3.Actual CasesOn June 23, 2009, the Obama administration filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against China, alleging that China is restricting the exports of nine raw materials important to US manufacturing.It is the just one example of new trade frictions developing between China and the United States.The US Department of Commerce on June 26 opened a probe into whether China has dumped or subsidized wire decking sold in the US market.The probe followed the initiation of similar investigations into wire strand and steel grating products earlier in June.Experts said rising trade protectionism tends to accompany economic recessions.Following the three US anti-dumping and countervailing investigations into imports of Chinese steel products in June, China's Ministry of Commerce posted a strongly worded statement on its website expressing its concerns about what it believes is protectionism."China is shocked at the frequency of the cases and the strength of the targeting. Chinese industry is extremely dissatisfied and the government deeply concerned," the Ministry of Commerce statement read."These actions are sending the wrong signals about trade protectionism within the United States to the international community," the statement read.US authorities have said the goal is simply to protect the rights of domestic industries.In another development, China last month rejected US and European charges that its restrictions on raw materials exports violate international trade rules, saying that its policies were in keeping with WTO regulations.The European Union and the United States said they were taking a complaint tothe World Trade Organization over China's export curbs on some industrial raw materials used in steel, cars, microchips, planes and other products.In 2009, the United Steelworkers Union applied to the United States International Trade Commission, for the special safeguard investigations towards car tire made in China. Subsequently, the US International Trade Commission, on grounds of disrupting the US tire market, suggesting the United States imposing 55%, 45% and 35% ad valorem tariff on tires exported from China for three consecutive years respectively.On December 14, 2011, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced that China would impose anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties on imported cars of more than 2.5 liters displacement, which were originated from the US. And the implementation period is 2 years, from December 15, 2011 to December 14, 2013.By the end of September 2012, Obama signed the first executive order that banning foreign investment, vetoing SANY HEAVY INDUSTRY CO., LTD. to make the wind power investment in the United States.On October 8, 2012, the United States House of Representatives released the investigation report, on national security grounds, to prevent two Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE to enter the US equipment system.On October 10, 2012, the US Department of Commerce gave the final determination that there were dumping and subsidization when China exported the crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and components to US.On October 13, 2012, a solar company in US called Solyndra filed a "antitrust" lawsuit to China's three largest photovoltaic manufacturers-SUNTECH, YINGLI and TRINA.4.Causal Analysis3.1 Economic AnalysisEmerging economies have managed to keep up their growth rates and exports, and have thus experienced a trade surplus, while developed countries are facing huge trade deficits and have come to favour protectionism. The importance of recovering growth and jobs in the US, for example, and efforts to sustain export-led growth in China are now creating trade and currency friction between these two countries. For several decades there has also been a consistent increase in the trade deficit between the two - in favour of China - and this imbalance reached over US$200 billion per annum in 2013. The US kept quiet over this for a long time, as the trade deficit helped contain inflation due to cheap imports from China, and the unemployment level was still manageable. But as soon as the US realised this trade friction with China was affecting employment and there was no level playing field for its domestic industries, the Americans resorted to protectionism.A major allegation against China is that its exchange rate is fixed and is notallowed to appreciate —all in the name of stability. As a result, China’s currency is undervalued, making its exports particularly competitive in the international market. The US has adopted several measures to counter the growth of Chinese exports and boost its own domestic economy. First, it has upped the number of anti-dumping cases against China. And second, the US government passed legislation to punish Chinese exports, as it believes that China is heavily subsidising its export items to the US. There have also been instances of tariff hikes on several import items from China.China and the US are not only the world’s biggest economies, but they are highly dependent on each other for their growth —and of course the rest of the world also depends on them. China has nearly US$1.5 trillion worth of dollar-denominated assets, and it will be problematic for the US if China stops buying US government bonds. The US is equally dependent on China for its exports of primary commodities such as meat and fruit, and many US companies are based in China in the hope that domestic demand will rise and they will make profits. But Chinese domestic demand is still largely suppressed, meaning the US is not able to obtain sufficient market access. Meanwhile, China depends largely on the US market to sell its labour-intensive manufactured items. Nearly five per cent of China’s GDP comes from exports to the US. So, the trade friction continues.There are five main types about the Sino-US bilateral trade frictions: micro-economic friction due to one party’s surge in imports or certain import restrictions; macro-economic friction due to the imbalance of bilateral trade; investment friction related to international investment; friction due to the different bilateral trade regime; technical friction caused by TBT.In fact, in the background of economic globalization, trade friction is inevitable. We are a big developing country, the market economy system is not perfect, the political system, cultures and traditions are very different from the United States. So it is normal that some trade frictions occur.The China's WTO accession and particularly the U.S. role in the accession lay a foundation for a more stable, a more positive relationship between these two huge and important countries. But the trade issues between the two countries has not been effectively resolved, such as the exchange rate, trade inequality issues. With the two countries’further deepened economic integration, the two sides will be a lot of collisions in the system, resulting in various problems.In recent years, with the rapid development of Sino-US economic and trade relations, bilateral trade friction shows a intensified trend. Trade imbalance, textile safeguard, anti-dumping and other issues constitute the main content of Sino-US trade friction. China and the US competing for economic interests, the return of US domestic trade protectionism, and strategic containment, are the main reasons for the growing trade frictions. The trade friction has brought a negative impact on the development of Sino-US trade relations.Sino-US trade friction is mainly micro-economic friction, but will expand to other areas. In 2003, RMB exchange rate issue was macro-economic friction, and has been continued to the present. As China's WTO accession has not diminished the Sino-US trade friction, it is also difficult to ensure that China will face much lessrestricted. In the future, Sino-US trade could be extended to more areas, including labor standards, subsidies, health inspection standards, security issues, trade inequality, investment and trade-related institutional arrangements.3.2 Political Analysis3.2.1 Fair trade substituted free trade. The United States was focus on free trade during the period after the war to 1970s. After 1970s, as a result of the huge trade deficit and other problems, the US began to turn to fair trade policies, and the basic point was that the openness of the US market is much higher than other countries. And finally the US enhanced its own competitiveness, and often takes sanctions against other countries using economic means, which causes other countries dissatisfied and trade friction arises.3.2.2 Emphasis on double standards and unilateralism. Such double standards and unilateral action will easily lead to retaliation from other countries, then trade friction is inevitable.3.2.3 Interest groups have an important impact on trade policy. Various interest groups, in order to achieve common goals and interests, influence the US legislation and other policy decisions directly or indirectly. In the unique system in US, we can see that as long as one thing affects the interests interest groups, there will be opposing views at once.3.2.4 Congress managed trade. Under the U.S. Constitution, the Congress has the power to manage the business contracts, develop and impose the tariffs. The executive department of the US can not formulate the foreign trade policy although it has a more international perspective, while the Members of this region who pay more attention to the regional interests can formulate foreign trade policy. So the trade protectionism is often reflected.3.2.5 The endorsement system. In the American democracy, parliamentarians and government officials tend to be the spokesman for certain interests. In the system of elections, personal influence and visibility for the future has a crucial impact. American politicians have huge amount of property themselves or are funded by others. Therefore it may lead to trade friction because of some interests of some officials.5.CountermeasuresThe question is not whether there is friction, the question is whether it is handled the right way.5.1 GovernmentThe government should grasp the trend of international economic environment, and adjust the economic and trade development strategy timely. The government should adopt a more balanced strategy in handling the relationship between external demand and domestic demand, according to the growth model required by the Scientific Concept of Development.The Government should participate in international negotiations actively, China should have a place in the development of standards and rules of trade barriers.In the integration into the WTO multilateral trading system and regional economic integration, the government should further improve the socialist market economy. We should speed up the policy adjustment and innovation, establish the socialist market economic which is consistent with WTO rules as soon as possible. By doing this, we can eliminate the possible institutional factors which may induce trade friction.To establish the trade friction warning mechanisms. The relevant government departments should keep track of a number of export products to prevent possible outbreaks of trade friction.5.2 EnterpriseChina's accession to WTO has been 10 years, Chinese enterprises should be more familiar with the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and the rules of it, so that they can be ready to win the trade war if happened. To be specific, when trade disputes occur, one way to resolve the trade friction is to pick up WTO dispute settlement mechanism, and try to strive for negotiations in a peaceful way.But the fundamental way to solve trade friction is making great efforts to implement the brand strategy, which can improve product quality, create a competitive advantage, and finally improve the competitiveness of enterprises. Actively implementing the strategy of Go-out, which can open up new markets, and the decrease the risk of trade friction.5.3 StakeholdersThe world’s two largest economies must work together toward solving this trade friction and to help avoid a currency war. China must allow its currency to be market determined, while the US must do away with its harsh protectionist measures.Despite such frictions, Sino-US trade still represents one of the world's more important trade relationships.In the first half of this year, the United States remained China's second-largest trade partner, with bilateral trade volume totaling $132.09 billion -- down 16.6 percent from a year ago.During the same period, China's trade with major trade partners saw a bigger decline, including a 20.9 percent drop in trade with the European Union, a 23.1 percent decline with Japan and 23.8 percent fall with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.The trade imbalance between the United States and China is not sustainable, andthe two countries have a joint responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said."There do exist some issues in our bilateral trade relations, including cooperation on high-tech products." Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian told a press conference.Based on the common interest and resolve the trade friction. There is a universally acknowledged truth that No Permanent Enemies, No Permanent Friends, only Eternal Interest. Many U.S.-based multinational corporations speed up the investment in China to take advantage of China's cheap labor resources. The huge commercial interest in Sino-US trade is important to the US. And China can also take advantage of the economic and political resources that the investment projects bring.【Reference】----Yang, Xinrong. Reasons of Sino-US trade frictions and countermeasures[C].//2011 International Conference on E-Business and E-Government. 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