Industrialization, the Developmental State in the 21st Century and International Trade: The Chinese State, Modernization of the Chinese Motor Vehicle Industry and the WTO

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 전남대학교 법학연구소
· 수록지 정보 : 법학논총 / 34권 / 2호 / 437 ~ 468페이지
· 저자명 : Mensah Eugene Kwadwo

초록

In the 20th century, late industrializing States such as Japan, South Korea andTaiwan used State policy to intervene in their domestic economies to quicken the paceof their industrializations. Such States have been called developmental States. However,since the late 20th century, international economic policy has been generally unsympatheticto such interventions. In fact the World Trade Organization - the WTO - hasbeen set up to minimize such interventions in international trade. How should a lateindustrializing State act to promote industrialization in such an environment?When China embarked on its economic reforms in the late 1970s, it was a lateindustrializer. China adopted its version of the developmental model to accelerate itsindustrialization drive and to develop an internationally competitive motor vehicleindustry. However, unlike the old development States like Japan, South Korea andTaiwan, China did not have the financial wherewithal to embark on old styledevelopmentalism. However, using the strong desire of auto MNCs to enter the hugeChinese domestic market as its major trump card, China pioneered a new developmentalmodel in which the State has used its power and leverage to engagemultinational capital to participate in its industrialization and development. By andlarge, China has been successful in this endeavor.
By the1990s, China felt that it had to join the WTO if it was to gain the full benefitsof its economic reforms,. Consequently, China joined the WTO in 2001. Joining theWTO did not dampen China’s desire to use the developmental model to accelerate itsindustrialization drive. Joining the WTO, however, meant that China would have totamper down this desire because the WTO eschews the developmental model as the basis of economic decision making. The conflict between China’s developmentalismand the WTO’s objective of reducing developmentalism in international trade policywas at the heart of the dispute, China – Measures Affecting Imports of AutomobileParts.
In that case, the WTO Panel and the Appeals Body vindicating the WTO’s freer traderemit ruled that, China had used illegal protectionist measures to protect its domesticindustry. That decision was right because when a country joins the WTO it pledges not to implement protectionist measures that discriminate against foreign goods. However,this decision makes it more difficult for late industrializing States to use developmentalmechanisms to fast track their industrialization drives.

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