China suffered its first defeat at the WTO after it upheld a complaint by the US, EU and Canada over import tariffs on car parts, sources close to the case said.
WTO judges have handed China and the plaintiffs a confidential decision condemning the Chinese import rules, diplomats said, speaking on Wednesday in Geneva on condition of anonymity.
The case is the first time China has been the subject of a complaint that went all the way through to the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body since it joined the organization in 2001.
PHOTO: AFP
Beijing has a minimum local content requirement of 60 percent for home produced cars. If this is exceeded, it then levies the same tariff on the vehicle as it would if it was imported completely built.
China has said the rules aim to prevent tax evasion by companies who import whole cars as spare parts to avoid higher tariff rates.
The plaintiffs argued this measure violates China's WTO accession agreement, which pledged a progressive opening up of its markets.
"It's a move in the right direction," Canada's Trade Minister David Emerson said of the WTO's ruling.
China's commerce ministry did not immediately comment.
"We heard about the case ... and we're looking into it now," a commerce ministry official said.
China is increasingly the focus of WTO complaints after keeping a relatively low profile in its first few years in the organization.
In 2004, the US said it planned to lodge a complaint at the Disputes Settlement Body over tax breaks for Chinese computer chip makers, but the two sides negotiated a solution four months later without the need for WTO arbitration.
Since then, Washington has lodged several other complaints against China with the WTO, including its record on protecting intellectual property rights in October last year.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can