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WTO

September

People check out Huawei’s new smartphone in Beijing. Ultimately, reflation hangs on revived consumer confidence.

China’s had deflation before. This is what it needs to do this time

Balance sheet issues were central to the contraction in previous deflationary episodes, and the resolution of these was key. Policymakers should focus on that.

  • Updated
  • Huw McKay
Japanese and Australian troops now co-operate more closely.

Japan and Australia face a turning point in world history

Tokyo and Canberra back a free and open international order against unilateral attempts to coerce, says a contender in Japan’s prime ministerial race.

  • Yoko Kamikawa

August

Zhejiang Geely displays its latest EVs at a launch event in Hong Kong.

Canada tries to halt China’s EV flood with 100pc tariffs

The move replicates US and EU measures as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says China “is not playing by the same rules” as everyone else over electric vehicles.

  • Promit Mukherjee and Akash Sriram
Australia can start marketing wine in China again after tariffs were removed this year.

High-level dialogue shows China chill is ending

The resumed annual face-to-face meeting of government and industry has been crucial to stabilising the relationship.

  • Craig Emerson
Then-prime minister Paul Keating’s principal adviser Don Russell and Robert Zoellick, a senior US president George HW Bush’s White House, sparred by correspondence.

When Keating went to war with the White House

Secret cables reveal for the first time how Keating’s right-hand man and a senior White House official engaged in an extraordinary war of words in 1992, sometimes in personal terms.

  • James Curran
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Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Beijing earlier this year. In China, Russia and many parts of the Global South there is suspicion that the rules-based order is really a liberal order crafted after the Second World War, largely to suit the purposes of Western powers.

Australia should focus on rules, not ‘rules-based order’, in Asia

Support for the transition from a US-led world to a multipolar world is gaining traction.

  • Anthony Milner
China is concerned regardless of who is sitting in the chair for the United States.

What does China make of America’s topsy-turvy election?

Beijing will have trouble working out whether a hard or soft approach to a new US administration will work best.

  • Ian Bremmer

July

China has not yet lifted its import ban on Australian lobsters.

New swipe at China over trade as lobster exports remain on ice

China should give up the favourable treatment it receives as a developing nation in the global trading system, the Albanese government says.

  • Andrew Tillett
Dmitry Grozoubinski, a Geneva-based former Australian trade negotiator, and author of ‘Why Politicians Lie About Trade’.

This could be the funniest business book you’ll read all year

Former Australian trade negotiator Dmitry Grozoubinski has written a tome about international trade policy. And for that, he’s very, very sorry.

  • Hans van Leeuwen
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Canberra last month.

Cheaper kitchen sinks as Canberra dismantles tariff barrier to China

While Australian lobster remains off the menu in Beijing, the Albanese government is removing tariffs on Chinese-made kitchen sinks.

  • Andrew Tillett

June

A BYD Denza Z9 GT EV at the Beijing Auto Show in April. The European Commission this month proposed tariffs of up to 38 per cent on electric cars from China.

China, EU agree to talks to head off EV trade war

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis will hold discussions to ease an escalating dispute.

  • Keith Bradsher
The Qingdao container port in China’s Shandong province.

Global supply chains at risk without new WTO rules for digital trade

The World Trade Organisation, despite its flaws, remains the only single vehicle able to attract multilateral participation, and business needs it more than ever.

  • John Denton
A BYD Denza Z9 GT EV at the Beijing Auto Show in April. US tariffs on Chinese EVs are particularly punitive.

History will judge the new era of US protectionism harshly

The unseemly contest by Joe Biden and Donald Trump to outdo each other in trade protectionism will make the world become less prosperous and more unpredictable.

  • Gary Hufbauer

May

Joe Biden.

America is undermining global rules, not defending them

Washington should dial down its claim to be protecting an international order that is clearly in decline, and instead talk up its defence of the free world.

  • Gideon Rachman
Geely’s electric vehicles bound for shipment to Europe at the Port of Taicang.

US, China protectionism race benefits no one

To counter competition from China, the United States is becoming more like China, and Australia and other nations have joined the game.

  • Shiro Armstrong
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Electric vehicles from China’s Geely car maker bound for shipment from the Port of Taicang.

America’s race to tear up trade rules hurts everyone

The US is growing tired of upholding the economic rules it laid out for the world after 1945. But tariffs only punish consumers and undermine competitiveness.

  • Edward Luce
Assistant Trade Minister Tim Ayres.

‘Made in Australia’ won’t trigger subsidy arms race, minister says

Industry subsidies used to be taboo in the trade world. But Tim Ayres, spruiking the government’s new industrial policy in Europe, says things have changed.

  • Hans van Leeuwen

March

Chinese leaders’ anger may be a sign that Joe Biden’s approach is working.

Bidenomics is making China angry. That’s OK

Biden’s China policy is so tough that it makes me, someone who generally favours a rules-based system, nervous.

  • Paul Krugman
Chinese President Xi Jinping extended formal invitations to meet with American CEOs last week.

Xi Jinping meets with American CEOs as trade tensions rise

China is seeking to shore up confidence amid a slowdown in foreign investment, which slumped to a 30-year low last year by one measure.

  • James Mayger
The beef industry believes it has been overlooked in the Albanese government’s claim to have successfully negotiated an end to the tariffs Beijing imposed on $20 billion of exports in 2020.

Aussie beef exports left out in the cold in China sanctions fix

With China set to remove tariffs on Australian wine, the beef industry says it is too early to celebrate as restrictions remain on more than $500 million of exports

  • Michael Smith and Andrew Tillett

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/world-trade-organisation-1myx