Abstract

The present paper explores the opportunities for China’s regional trade agreement (RTA) initiatives to mitigate its anti-dumping problems. The paper highlights the severity and discriminatory nature of China’s anti-dumping problems. The high concentration of the share of anti-dumping actions taken by the top 4 and top 8 anti-dumping initiators is noted. Our finding of a weak effect of existing RTAs on mitigating China’s anti-dumping problems supports the argument that China could become more active in mitigating anti-dumping problems through RTA negotiations. An RTA can include a higher level of openness in exchange for an improvement in regional anti-dumping provisions. Case studies on RTAs involving the EU, the USA and India offer some precedents for offering inducements and modifying regional anti-dumping provisions. The approaches for China may lie in obtaining market economy status from intensive anti-dumping initiators at RTA levels and also altering regional anti-dumping provisions that could be put in place in exchange for some potential concessions.

Key words: anti-dumping, mitigation, regional trade agreement
JEL codes: F13, F15, F68