Will China's agricultural products market lose control after China's accession to WTO?

Introduction: will China's agricultural products market lose control after entering WTO? ◆ trade liberalization of agricultural products has the most contradictions and the slowest progress Agricultural issues have always played a very important role in the whole world economy Agricultural trade and agricultural policies have been the focus of all countries in history From the perspective of economic globalization, agricultural trade liberalization is the slowest one in the whole economic globalization, and the international agricultural market is the latest and slowest in opening up Cheng Guoqiang said that the issue of agriculture is highly concerned by all countries, because it involves security issues, farmers' income issues, rural social stability issues, cultural issues, environmental protection issues and so on Since the end of the 19th century, agriculture has been in the era of protectionism in the whole international trade The first agricultural trade protection program can be traced back to the grain law enacted by the United Kingdom in 1840 Japan protected its rice at the beginning of the 20th century, which is still the highest level in the world Later, because the whole European continent was damaged by the war and the economic crisis, especially after the World War II, Europe was completely destroyed Faced with the threat of famine and the pressure of food security, the Treaty of Rome was promulgated when the European community was founded in 1957, in which the important content of the common agricultural policy was to use resources within six countries to solve the problem of food Food problems In the framework of world trade, due to the impact of the whole international market trade conflict at that time, the Uruguay Round negotiation of GATT, which started in 1986, was officially put forward as a topic It can be seen that agricultural liberalization is closely related to the economic and political interests of the country He said that the United States wants to earn money through agricultural products, so it advocates trade liberalization For Europe and Japan, they do not have comparative advantages, and opening up the market is not good for them The votes of his ruling parties may be affected, so they have to take protective measures The differences between the United States and Europe make the whole agricultural negotiation very difficult In other words, the pace of agricultural trade liberalization is very slow The whole negotiation process has become very complicated and difficult due to the constraints of these major countries Cheng Guoqiang said that the Uruguay Round talks lasted for seven years and ended in 1993 The reason why the Uruguay Round talks were very difficult was that the United States and Europe had different views on agricultural policies, that is, on agricultural subsidies The developed countries are all in the form of subsidies The government provides subsidies to the prices of agricultural products and exports to stabilize the relationship between various interest groups in China, protect the income of farmers, maintain the competitiveness of products in the international market, etc are inseparable from a series of policy measures If an international policy is formulated for management, these domestic policies will be subject to Of course, the constraints of international policy will not be accepted It was not until 1994 that a WTO agricultural agreement came into being Its entry into force means that the members of GATT at that time and WTO after 1995 should gradually promote the liberalization of agricultural products trade in accordance with its requirements, which is the background of China's accession to the WTO The liberalization of agricultural trade means gradually opening up the market of agricultural products If you set up tariffs to hinder the import, you should reduce tariffs; if you use complex non-tariff measures to restrict the import of agricultural products, you must completely cancel them, either convert them to the tariffs allowed by the WTO, that is, tariff, or implement tariff quota management, and also use new tariff quota management We should adjust your import policy ◆ China's accession to the WTO is not a simple opening up of the agricultural product market As a developing country, China has 50% - 60% of the agricultural employment population, and more than 70% of the population live in rural areas Such interests should be fully taken into account in any step of opening up The background of our agricultural negotiation is that, on the one hand, our domestic reform has been extended from rural reform to urban reform If we want to join WTO, agriculture shows another importance How much openness we need to keep our agricultural reform further deepened, how to ensure the stable and sustainable growth of agriculture in the open environment, so as to support our people Stable economic growth and the foundation of a stable rural society for the whole economic reform? Cheng Guoqiang said, "this is what we consider." The 1995 WTO Agreement on agriculture provides a big framework To join this organization, we must follow its rules We cannot make no commitment to agriculture because of our own agricultural particularity Therefore, China is likely to have to passively promote agricultural reform We must open the agricultural product market and reform the management system How to hold a good degree in negotiation? According to Cheng Guoqiang, first of all, we need to correct a misunderstanding that China's accession to the WTO will not bring simple market opening problems to China's agriculture, which contains pressure and challenges of deeper reform Indeed, we promised to open the market in the negotiation, but it is not only open the market, but also involves many aspects such as domestic agricultural policies, export competition of agricultural products, export subsidies, import and export management rights of relevant enterprises, and in-depth management If it's just a simple open market, I can pull the gate at any time If a product enters too much, I don't believe that a government can't restrict it It has an impact on my market Why can't it? There's nothing to be afraid of The key is that it is not only that, it has requirements for your domestic support, agricultural policies, etc In particular, our enterprises do not think much about competition under the condition of planned economy, which is considered by the government, including the quality standard system and the improvement of quality In fact, this is not a matter for the government It should be a matter for the enterprises In the past, we did not have such a competitive environment The enterprises basically did not consider how to improve their competitiveness in front of international competition The market was opened up with rules and regulations The whole domestic market competition will be faced with highly organized and highly competitive multinational companies We are not afraid of products We are afraid of companies Come on, who can deal with it? We must fully consider the overall challenges to China's agriculture after China's accession to the WTO Cheng Guoqiang said that during the negotiations, our commitments were launched from five levels, namely, opening up the agricultural products market to the outside world; complying with the provisions of WTO agricultural agreement on domestic support; and China's commitment not to export subsidies, animal and plant health measures and national treatment ◆ the market opening is not equal, the new measures are inexperienced, and the market is out of control Cheng Guoqiang said that the essence of opening up the agricultural product market is to change our past agricultural product import management measures with the idea of planned economy, and gradually adjust and reform the import management measures allowed by the WTO agricultural agreement We are worried that this new policy measure has not been used and operated inexperiently, which may lead to market out of control Bad management may also lead to trade disputes If the current foreign trade system and import policy are not adjusted appropriately, it will affect the effective regulation of market opening in the future He said that when entering into the WTO to open up the market of agricultural products, the tariff on meat, fruits, vegetables and processed food should be reduced as required In this process, soybeans and barley attract the most attention Soybeans were opened in 1996 The negative impact of opening up the market has begun to appear in recent years If we evaluate the impact of tariff reduction on agricultural products, we can refer to the problems of these two agricultural products, and we do not have enough ways to offset this negative impact Since 1995, there have been many problems in WTO's agricultural commitment From the perspective of tariff, there have been two problems in the process of tariff in developed countries One is tariff peak When these countries convert non-tariff into tariff, they think that sensitive products raise tariff, resulting in a certain proportion of high tariff products, which has a negative impact on the exports of developing countries, including China Surface effect Second, the tariff upgrade means that the product processing degree keeps improving, and the tariff increases accordingly If it's raw materials, the tariff will be relatively low If the tariff of processed products based on this product will increase, it will cause a very unfavorable situation for developing countries, because the processing capacity and industrial base of developing countries generally lag behind those of developed countries If there is a problem of tariff escalation in developed countries, it will hit the industrial development of developing countries and restrict the promotion of industrialization 。 And China is negotiating under the condition of trade liberalization It is not easy for China to achieve the environment of trade fairness as a passive party There is no way to put forward conditions for China's accession to the WTO We are required to open the market, but the opening is not equal More or less, we will promise some unfavorable conditions at the negotiation table, which is normal to cause domestic concerns Grain, cotton, oil, sugar and wool products, as important agricultural products related to national economy and people's livelihood, have been transformed into tariff quota management according to requirements Tariff quota management is a new thing in China, and WTO members have only started to use it in recent years Cheng Guoqiang believes that due to the legal loopholes in WTO agricultural agreements and GATT in this respect, many countries use strange methods to manage, some countries have four or five kinds of management methods For China, the first is that it has no experience The second is that we need a certain transition period to explore this approach China's transition period is not as long as other countries According to the agricultural agreement, there is a six-year transition period from 1995 to 2001 for the agricultural developed countries and 10 to 2005 for the developing countries If we join the agreement at the end of this year, the transition period is actually only 2 or 3 years It is very difficult to find out the mechanism of tariff quota management in such a short time Third, because of the confusion of its own legal provisions, some countries have asked to avoid such problems in China How to do a good job in quota management according to WTO regulations is a challenge to us We are not protecting our own market, but demanding reciprocity It is unfair for us to restrict the use of other countries' methods in our country ◆ domestic support space is limited, and negative protection of Chinese agricultural products is expensive to win the international market There are also a series of provisions on domestic agricultural agreements supporting the WTO Cheng Guoqiang said that because developed countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan have taken high subsidy measures for agriculture for a long time, the direct consequence of this policy is the distortion of domestic agricultural product market, so the domestic agricultural product price is moderate They are both the exporters and importers of agricultural products, and this kind of distortion is transmitted to the international market They are required to reduce the distorting effect of high subsidies on the international market The United States is worried that China's agricultural products will compete with it in the international market in the future It hopes to limit China's agricultural subsidies to a potential level, which is the strategic intention of the United States At the same time, the issue of subsidies, if the United States and China reach