Antidumping and Strategic Industrial Policy: Tit-for-Tat Trade Remedies and the China-X-Ray Equipment Dispute

Abstract

The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), created in 1992 and directed by Professor Brigid Laffan, aims to develop inter-disciplinary and comparative research on the major issues facing the process of European integration, European societies and Europe's place in 21 st century global politics. The Centre is home to a large post-doctoral programme and hosts major research programmes, projects and data sets, in addition to a range of working groups and ad hoc initiatives. The research agenda is organised around a set of core themes and is continuously evolving, reflecting the changing agenda of European integration, the expanding membership of the European Union, developments in Europe's neighbourhood and the wider world.

China–HP-SSST: Last Part of Growing Pains?

“…Thus, given the timeframe of the Panels' rulings, MOFCOM did not have sufficient time to incorporate the WTO rulings in its practices before the same issues were challenged again. 15 However, Canada has initiated a dispute focusing on very similar legal claims in 2014 for Vermulst (2014, 2015), Moore and Wu (2015), and Mitchell and Prusa (2016).…”

“…35 Still, even in the China-X-Ray Equipment case the European Union did not challenge the product definition although it noted that 'there is a wide and recognizable gap between high-and low-energy scanners' which leads to 'very large disparities in price', 36 just as in the present case. Moore and Wu (2015) suggest that this may be due to the lesson the European Union learned from the EU-Footwear case brought by China against the European Union. In that case, the Panel left ample margins of maneuvering for the investigating authorities to determine 'like' products.…”

“…In that case, the Panel left ample margins of maneuvering for the investigating authorities to determine 'like' products. As Moore and Wu (2015) speculated regarding the HP-SSST case, ongoing at the time, this issue 'will be a recurrent theme in future WTO disputes' (page 284).…”

“…Still the European Union and Japan did not raise any issue relating to the definition of product and industry, while the issue of industry was raised in the dispute China–X-Ray Equipment . As a matter of fact, Moore and Wu (2015) summarize one of the EU's allegations in this case as whether the Chinese authority had ‘appropriately defin[ed] the boundaries of the product scope of the investigated sector when undertaking its price effects analysis and its analysis of the state of the domestic industry’ 35 . Still, even in the China–X-Ray Equipment case the European Union did not challenge the product definition although it noted that ‘there is a wide and recognizable gap between high- and low-energy scanners’ which leads to ‘very large disparities in price’, 36 just as in the present case.…”

China–Autos:Haven't We Danced this Dance Before?

“…Many of the US claims were similar to those raised by the US in several previous WTO disputes brought by the US against China: China–GOES, 3 and China–X-Ray Equipment, 4 and in China–Broiler Products 5 . As a result, to the extent that the issues have already been analyzed in previous ALI reports (Prusa and Vermulst, 2014, 2015; Moore and Wu, 2015), we will not analyze them in this report again, although we elaborate on the overlap in issues in Section 3. We review some of the procedural shortcomings of the MOFCOM investigation in Section 4 and discuss substantive issues related to MOFCOM's determination of injury in Section 5.…”