Each year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) produces a report on China’s compliance with its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments. Ahead of this year’s report, the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) has submitted comments to the USTR. CPA’s letter focuses on China’s many broken promises, particularly in the automotive and electric vehicle market—industries that Beijing has targeted as part of its ‘China 2025 plan.’
Said Michael Stumo, CEO of the CPA:
“The WTO was designed with western market economies in mind. Many western leaders believed that 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, was The End of History. In other words, history had judged that democratic capitalism had won over state-directed capitalism, which would and could never rise again. China’s state capitalism with Chinese characteristics could not last. China’s push to get into the WTO was proof of history’s judgment.
We were wrong. Beijing has no intention of moving to a democratic capitalism model. The WTO is not equipped to handle the whole-of-government-and-industry strategy utilized by the Chinese Communist Party to pursue its interests. Beijing’s goal is to bend the WTO and the world to its vision, rather than bend to the western world. Indeed, China’s intent is to reduce the power of the US and the international institutions. As longtime diplomat Michael Pillsbury observed: “[T]hey see a multipolar world as merely a strategic waypoint to a new global hierarchy in which China is alone at the top.”
CPA believes the United States must move further in decoupling the U.S. economy from China. We support utilizing leverage to protect our economic, security and geopolitical interests through a whole-of-government effort including a full suite of trade intervention tools.”
