An excuse for protectionism

Some members have sought to use WTO provisions to provide unfair advantage to their uncompetitive industries

In the debate on China's full market economy status, there has been an attempt by a few countries to invent a set of criteria to define a "market economy" with qualifiers such as a convertible currency and disqualifiers such as State-owned enterprises.

But "non-market economy" is not a World Trade Organization (WTO) designation, it is a label used by some WTO members to justify their discriminatory anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard actions against Chinese products. The requirements of a market economy are fully laid out by the WTO. Any member that accepts the WTO rules is perforce a market economy. Any attempt to define a non-market economy is an attempt to create a second-class tier in the WTO and therefore should be rejected categorically.