Shao Yu and Chen Dafei: The so -called structure may be reflected in the results of the results, such as the imbalance of the trade structure; it may also be reflected in procedural policies such as discrimination rules and unfair competition.
At present, China and the United States have held 6 rounds of trade negotiations.After each round of negotiations, the official statement issued by the United States and the comparison of China -US statements are important texts for market analysts information mining.Among them, the most abstract, and the most elusive expression is the expression of structural.On February 6, Trump made a speech in Washington, when talking about Sino -US trade negotiations, he emphasized that the agreement with China must include structural changes.So, what is structural differences between China and the United States?
The author believes that the so -called structure is compared to the total amount of macro, it is a micro, or a vocabulary at the mid -view level.It may be reflected in the results, such as the imbalance of the trade structure, or the procedure, such as the asymmetry of equity caused by discrimination rules and unfair competition policies.
We believe that the first level is the issue of trade structure, that is, China has maintained a large -scale trade surplus to the United States for a long time. Among them, it is mainly a large surplus of commodity trade, and the service trade China is in a state of deficit.Therefore, in China and the United States 6 negotiations, the United States always expects China to purchase more agricultural products and energy from the United States from the United States.Trump has boasted Haikou to American voters and wants to reduce the US trade deficit in China year by year.In this round of negotiations, Article 8 of the negotiating statement announced by the United States discussed the trade deficit issue, and also proposed specific measures, that is, China purchased American products from American farmers, nulbs, manufacturers and enterprises from the United States.A key content.
The United States has not stayed at the level of trade imbalance on trade imbalances.The United States does not think that the comparative advantage theory applies to the imbalance of the Sino -US trade structure, but believes that China has obtained international competitiveness through unfair tariff barriers, non -tariff barriers, and various industrial policies.For example, the problem of overcapacity caused by various industrial policies (such as subsidies) is in Article 5 of the US statement MDASH; MDASH; including how the market distortions of subsidies and state -owned enterprises have caused excess capacity.
Compared with the result of trade imbalance, procedural unfairness is a more structural issue that the United States is more concerned about. This is also the connotation of competitive neutrality advocated by the United States and WTO.Discrimination rules formulated in competition.
Therefore, the 3rd MDASH; MDASH declared by the United States; many tariffs and non -tariff barriers facing American companies in China and Article 6 MDASH; mdash; need to eliminate the market barriers and market barriers and market barriers and agriculture of the United States to China, services and agriculture.Tariffs mentioned the tariffs and non -tariff barriers faced when exported to China in China and overseas American companies.The United States claims that the barriers facing American companies operated in China include ownership restrictions, government procurement, license requirements, product standards, and so on.Among them, the latter two barriers are often faced by foreign companies exported products to China.In addition, they are limited by asymmetric tariffs.For example, the average tariffs from the US export goods and services to China reached 9.9%, while the average tariffs from China exported to the United States were only 3.5%.
Data source: WTO, Oriental Securities Description: MFN is MOST FAVORED National, the most beneficial country.
Setting rules is to create power.The rules of asymmetric mean asymmetric power.This is the source of structural problems.
The United States believes that these rules set in China have created space for forcing or inducing American companies to transfer technology to China.This is easy to imagine, that is, if foreign companies want to enter China, they must agree to the conditions proposed by the Chinese side, which implies the technical transfer clauses.The transfer of compulsory technology and intellectual property rights is the focus of the 301 report. It is reflected in many negotiations. The first MDASH; mdash in this US statement;Two mdash; mdash; China needs to strengthen the protection and law enforcement of intellectual property rights.
China ’s opinion, all this is voluntary, because foreign companies have the right to choose independently, they can choose not to enter China, so there is no need to transfer technology to China. How can this be said to be a Chinese mandatory technology transfer?Intersection
But from the perspective of the United States, these unfair rules are added to the enterprise, so they are mandatory.Without these rules, companies are still willing to transfer technology, that would be voluntary.
Therefore, on the eve of the negotiations (January 16) on January 30-31, the US Chamber of Commerce and the US Chamber of Commerce in the US Trade Representative Office submitted a two steps on the reports of the content and measures of the negotiating content and measures.The first step is to establish rules MDASH; mdash; fairness and equal rules.
Of course, in terms of technology and intellectual property rights, the United States emphasizes more. It also includes China to obtain business information and confidential documents through network invasion.There are some specific cases in the 301 report released by the United States.In addition, at Navarro's monograph MDASH; MDASH; Deadly China and its US Trade and Manufacturing Policy Office, which was located on June 19, 2018, a Chinese economic aggression called China threatened the technology of the United States and the world.There are detailed explanations in the documents of intellectual property rights.In response to this, Article 4 in the United States statement mdash; mdash; China's harm to Internet theft of American commercial property mdash; mdash; explained this.
In fact, these asymmetric rules and structural problems exist have certain rationality.On the one hand, it originated from the differences in the endowment of China and the United States.Just like in China, the value -added tax rate of different products is also different. The difference in the endowment of innate resource endowment may also lead to the difference in tariffs on imported goods.This is in line with the principles of economic rationality.On the other hand, it also originated from China's developing countries when entering the market.China joined TWO as a developing country, thus obtaining relatively loose conditions during the transition period.However, with the enhancement of China's economic strength, developed western countries led by the United States have not recognized China as a developing country.Trump often teases in public that the United States is also a developing country.In this case, the United States believes that the principles of reciprocating, transparent, market access, fair competition, economic development, and non -discriminatory in the WTO must be implemented with China's equivalent status in economic and trade relations.
In addition, the structural issues caused by these asymmetric and discriminatory rules are also concentrated in a report that the United States evaluates China as a non -market economy.On October 26, 2017, the Ministry of Commerce of the United States issued a report on China's non -market economy status.The report has evaluated the non -market attributes of the Chinese economy in 6 aspects: (1) To what extent can the currency be converted into currencies in other countries;(3) The extent of allowing foreign companies to joint venture or other investments; (4) the government's degree of control or control of production materials; (5) the government's control of resource allocation and corporate prices and output decisions; (6) The management authorities believe that the authorities believe that the authorities believe thatOther factors;
On the whole, the report believes that China does not meet the requirements of a market economy country in any way.The RMB exchange rate in Article (1) is a problem that the United States emphasizes more. This is reacted in Article 7 of the US statement in Article 7 of the United States; MDASH; currency in the role of the US -China trade relations.(2), (4), (5) to evaluate the government's role in economic development.The connotation of structural differences is to solve the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resource allocation.
In response to the currency issue, the US Department of Commerce reported that China still maintains control over the valuation of the RMB through the intermediate price setting process and foreign exchange market intervention measures.China also continues to maintain the approval requirements of all major capital account transactions, including investment, borrowing and cross -border account holding.The China Foreign Exchange Trading Center did not disclose the weight of the previous day for calculating the middle price.In addition, a large amount of foreign exchange intervention is required to keep the RMB nail a basket of currencies.The United States believes that Chinese officials have obtained a competitive advantage through long -term underestimation of the RMB exchange rate, and the way to underestimate the RMB exchange rate is to interfere with the foreign exchange market and implement capital control.
In fact, in the David Bull; Stanberg's monograph MDASH; MDASH; The Demanding Devaluation: Exchange Rate Politics in the Developing World, the exchanges of exchanges in developing countries belong to minority.He believes that countries with important control in the financial and labor markets only in the important position of manufacturing and the government's financial and labor markets are a feasible advantage strategy.On the one hand, the underestimation rate can win global market competitiveness for trade -available manufacturing products; on the other hand, underestimation rates will increase the investment cost of manufacturing, but the government can give manufacturers through the financial sector and labor market policySubsidies, for example, by financial suppression policies, lowering the loan interest rate of manufacturing enterprises, or the salary of stress workers.Most of the cost of capital and labor costs occupy the cost of manufacturing enterprises.In this way, on the one hand, the price of the finished product is lowered, and on the other hand, the middle cost is lowered, making China soon become a world factory.But from the perspective of the United States, this is Confucianism and national capitalism, which violates the WTO rules, and it must be resolved in negotiations.
It can be seen that the eight contents in the US statement in this negotiation have inherently inherently connected.According to the classic economics theory, bilateral trade imbalances can be spontaneously adjusted through exchange rates and other mechanisms. The long -term trade imbalance between China and the United States is an abnormal behavior. As a result of abnormal results, it has triggered the United States' reflection on competitive rules.The differences in these rules are where structural differences between China and the United States, and behind these structural differences are competition in different systems and economic development models in China and the United States, and a competition between the consensus between Washington and Beijing.
Note: This article only represents the author's own point of view.Shao Yu is the chief economist of Oriental Securities and Chen Dafei is a senior macro researcher at Oriental Securities.Editor of this article Xu Jin [email protected]
