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According to statistics from China’s Ministry of Commerce, India has carried out eight trade remedy investigations against China in January and February, involving products such as linen and coated paper. As of August 2017, India has launched 212 anti-dumping investigations against China, making it one of the most active users of the WTO trade remedy measures.

China’s Ministry of Commerce has been urging India to legitimately using trade remedy measures, noting that the abuse of such measures would cast a negative influence on the two nations’ trade and economic ties.

India has been using trade deficit with China as an excuse to impose anti-dumping duties on the latter. According to Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s minister of commerce and industry, India's trade deficit with China was $51.08 billion in 2016-17, while China remains one of the top 10 countries with which India's trade deficit has increased during the last three years.

“The trade deficit between China and India is a natural outcome of the two nations’ trade structure. India has a relatively stronger dependency on Chinese products, while a trade friction would lead to severer damage to India than to China,” Ma Jiali, an expert on India studies told Global Times.