China, Japan to Re-open Talks on Trade DisputesChina and Japan will begin a new round of talks in Beijing Thursday to find a solution to their disputes over trade in farm products, according to sources with the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.This will be the second formal trade negotiation between China and Japan, following their first, unsuccessful bureau-level talks in July. Japan announced a one-year trade investigation into three Chinese agricultural products, green Chinese onion, fresh mushroom and tatami rushes, on December 22, 2000. Disregarding the strong objection from China, the Japanese side launched temporary protective measures against the three products on April 23, 2001. In response to Japan's discriminative treatment, China imposed on June 22 100-percent punitive tariffs on imports of Japanese-made automobiles, mobile phones and air conditioners. No agreement has been reached between the two sides since their July talks and the informal contacts afterwards. Now Japan's 200-day temporary protective measures will cease to be in force on November 8. And trade analysts here say the Japanese side may attempt to use this as counters to bargain for China's revoke of the punitive tariffs. However, they pointed out, Japan's year-long investigation comes to an end on December 21, 2001 and at any time before that, the Japanese side may launch formal protective measures. According to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and Japanese regulations, the invalidity of temporary protective measures doesn't mean the trade disputes have been resolved, they warned. The key to a thorough solution lies in whether the Japanese side formally lift restrictions on the import of Chinese agricultural products, analysts said. According to experts, the recession felt by Japanese producers of the three agricultural products is mainly due to the irrational industrial structure of Japan's farming industry and the lack of competitiveness of its agriculture. It is by no means a single case resulted in increase of imports in a short period of time. The Chinese side refuses to be committed to the autonomous quantity restriction proposed by the Japanese side because it is not only prohibited by the WTO, but is also against the market-oriented development trade, experts said. They said if the two sides fail to reach an agreement before the end of this year, the disputes may be put for international arbitration on the basis of WTO rules after China joins the global trade rule-making body. |
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