WTO members should fulfill obligations: MOFCOM

China has urged WTO members to stop assessing dumping duties on Chinese products by using thirdcountry prices from Sunday to avoid harming bilateral economic and trade relations, an official from the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said at a press conference held in Beijing on Friday.

As for those who continue to decline to fulfill their obligations under Article 15 of the Protocol on China’s Accession to the WTO, China will take the necessary measures to protect its own legal rights, MOFCOM spokesman Shen Danyang told the press conference.

The WTO obligations require its members to end the “surrogate country approach” by December 11, 2016, under which costs of production in a third country are allowed to be used to gauge whether goods made in China were sold below market value.

When asked about recent media reports of Japan and the EU’s intention not to recognize China as a market economy under the WTO, Shen criticized the move as deliberately underplaying their WTO obligations that must be fulfilled on December 11.

Japan on Thursday continued not to recognize China as a “market economy” under the WTO, a stance that will leave tariffs on Chinese exports within its “anti-dumping” mechanism.

“Some people in the West are confusing the WTO obligations under Article 15 with the issue of market economy status … the market economy concept, formed during the Cold War, is much more political and only appears in the domestic laws of countries and regions from the EU and US,” said Shen.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been frequent antidumping investigations launched by markets such as the EU and US targeting China’s steel exports.

“As the world’s second largest economy and biggest trading partner for more than 130 countries, China has become a bedrock for protecting global free trade. We don’t want people to continue to look at China through colored glasses,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.