China worried by WTO litigation

Beijing’s man at the World Trade Organization, Yi Xiaozhun, recently warned Chinese leaders about an increasingly tough litigation environment:

China should be mindful of increased trade frictions with European countries and the United States, the Chinese representative to World Trade Organization (WTO) warned on Monday.

“China must remain alert to the intensity, measures and involved industrial sectors concerning trade restrictions on China,” said Yi Xiaozhun, permanent representative of China to the WTO.

European countries and the U.S. are adopting increasingly harsh trade relief measures on China’s exports, Yi told Xinhua on the sidelines of the annual session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body.

Overall, China remains well behind the United States and the European Union as a target of WTO complaints:

But since 2012, China has been sued at the WTO more than any other state:

Decisions are still pending in most of these disputes, but rulings on earlier cases are trickling in. Just last week, the European Commission celebrated a WTO decision relating to duties China had imposed on security scanning equipment.

The environment in Geneva may get even tougher for China if the United States and the EU successfully negotiate a free-trade pact. A trade deal would likely settle outstanding disputes between Washington and Brussels—freeing up government trade lawyers to concentrate their firepower elsewhere. Senior European officials haven’t masked their desire to forge an alliance against what they consider a pernicious new brand of authoritarian capitalism.