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The sender Email : Theme : Content : <script language="javascript"> var aid = "20090406173643"; var sid = "wto2"; var atitle = "Statement by Dr. Zhang Xiangchen, DPR of China at the informal TPR meeting to review trade developments"; var akeyworks = "TPR Statement ,,"; var colname = "2005"; var colename = "inbrief"; var coldesc = "001"; var articletype = "原创"; var author = "wto"; var atype = "0"; var subtitle = "新闻"; </script> <table class=aarticle cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0> <tr> <td class="title">Statement by Dr. Zhang Xiangchen, DPR of China at the informal TPR meeting to review trade developments</td></tr> <tr><td class=lline></td></tr> <tr><td class=time>Wednesday,April 15,2009 Posted: 15:29 BJT(0729 GMT)</td></tr><tr><TD align="center" class="from" >  From:wto    Article type:Original</td></tr> <tr><td class=content id=zoom><br> <br/>14 April 2009 <br/> <br/>Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this informal meeting. <br/>First of all, we would like to thank the Director-General and the Secretariat for the second report distributed on 26 March 2009. This report is more comprehensive with more in-depth analyses and is an obvious improvement compared with the first one circulated in January. It is noteworthy that this practice of the TPRB to monitor trade-related measures has been endorsed by leaders attending the G20 London Summit and they have called on the WTO to continue this practice on a quarterly basis. This is a recognition of the legitimacy, validity and indispensability of the WTO in the international coordination to respond to the global financial and economic crisis. <br/>That being said, and as pointed out by the Director-General and Ambassador Bhatia, there is still room for further improvement on this report. Beside the fact that it still contains much unverified media information which to some extent erodes the reliability of this report, the fundamental questions which cannot be avoided by the next report are: what are protectionist measures? What kind of measures should be criticized? These are seemingly simple questions. Nonetheless, it can get complicated in trying to answer them. One thing is clear though: they are not purely legal questions. How to deal with those measures which are on the one hand WTO consistent in form, while on the other hand trade-distorting in nature? This is where the complexity lies. Please allow me to quote the comments made by my Minister Mr. Chen Deming during the G20 London Summit. He said, and I quote, “[a]ll that is not permitted under WTO rules is clearly trade protectionist therefore should not be applied. Even protection measures permitted by the WTO, such as contingency measures, should be used with restraints instead of being abused. Towards protection measures, WTO Members should abide by a principle of ‘no use, less use and cautious use’, so as to create an atmosphere of facilitating trade liberalization.” In my view, this principle also applies to all actionable subsidies, just mentioned by Ambassador Bhatia, which have been emerging in large quantity recently. <br/>Now for the sake of improving the quality of the next report, please allow me to make a specific comment. <br/>Annex I of the report on Page 35 refers to Section 727 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act 2009 of the United States which acts as import restrictions towards poultry products of China. I believe this is not something new to people in this room. The Secretariat is totally correct in listing this measure in the report. However, I was surprised to see that after quoting the very sentence in the US Act, the report went on to say that “[t]his is reportedly in response to food safety concerns, and is intended to allow time for USDA officials to ensure that imported poultry from China is safe.” <br/>This reminds me of a Chinese idiom “Gou Wei Xu Diao”. In ancient China, as a symbol of status, senior officials would wear hats made of sable fur. More than 1700 years ago, in Jin Dynasty, a King appointed too many people as senior officials and sable fur was just not sufficient. As an alternative, those who could not find sable fur resorted to dog tails. So the literary interpretation of this idiom is “a dog’s tail joined to sable”. In English, you might say “a wretched sequel to a fine work”. <br/>According to my understanding, to rightly list the US measure in the report is sable fur, while this so-called “reported explanation” is just like a dog’s tail. And the dog’s tail has the side effect of triggering suspicions. People may ask, was it a behind-door compromise so that the report could be issued in time? Or maybe it was a lower-head to the privileged ones. Or this could be a deliberate strategy of draftsmen. Just like another Chinese idiom has conveyed, “the more what one tries to hide, the more it is exposed”. <br/>If none of these is correct, it would be more difficult to understand: where does this “reported” explanation come from? Why was it added here while few measures of other Members were treated the same way? Why was only an argument which could be and has been easily debunked added here, but not elsewhere? Take China’s ban of Irish pork as an example. In our verification, it is clearly stated that this measure, like many similar ones by other Members, has been put in place because of dioxin pollution. However, not a single word was mentioned in the report. <br/>Chair, forgive me for having raised a specific question which I assume is not very easy to answer. But please believe me, I did this because like everyone else here, I truly hope that in the next report, all we will see is sable fur, rather than dogs’ tails. <br/>Finally, Mr. Chairman, some of our notified trade facilitation measures have not been included in the report. Owing to time constraints, I am not going to read them. But for the purpose of transparency, a room document containing these measures has been placed at the back of the room. <br/>Thank you, Mr. Chairman. <br/> <br/></td></tr> </table> The addressee Email :