The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) requests comments to assist in the preparation of its annual report to Congress on China’s compliance with commitments made in connection to its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. The deadline for the submission of comments is September 16, 2020. The interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) will pose questions on submitted comments by September 30, 2020, and commenters can respond to TPSC’s questions up until October 14, 2020. The USTR’s previous annual report on China’s WTO compliance can be viewed here.
The terms of China’s accession to the WTO are contained in Protocol of Accession of the People’s Republic of China, the Working Party Report, and the WTO agreements, which can be found here under sections V and VI of the webpage. According to the USTR’s notice, comments on China’s compliance with WTO commitments can include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Trading rights
- Import regulation (e.g. tariffs, tariff-rate quotas, quotas, import licenses)
- Export regulation
- Internal policies affecting trade (e.g. subsidies, standards and technical regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, government procurement, trade-related investment measures, taxes and charges levied on imports and exports)
- Intellectual property rights (including intellectual property rights enforcement)
- Services
- Rule of law issues (e.g. transparency, judicial review, uniform administration of laws and regulations) and status of legal reform
- Other WTO commitments
Additionally, USTR requests that interested parties specifically identify unresolved compliance issues that warrant review by USTR’s China Enforcement Task Force.
