Will China Behave in the WTO Dispute Settlement Me-法搜-中国法律信息搜索网

　　d. China-Japan dispute of agriculture products
　　This is a case where the on-going dispute is likely to be settled with other disputant making concessions.
　　Japan is now China’s largest trade partner and China Japan''s second, with almost no imbalance, importing US$41.7 billion worth of goods from China and exporting US$41.5 billion in 2000.
　　On 11 April 2001, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing informed the Chinese government that Japan decided to impose temporary restrictions on the imports of Chinese leeks, shiitake mushrooms and straw for a period of 200 days starting from 23 April 2001. China protested, arguing that Japan used the double standards that were against the principle of fairness. From the Chinese perspective, Japanese decision was politically motivated.
　　The MOFTEC argued that the Japanese decision ran against the WTO rules in several aspects - the selection of products to investigate, the basic conditions to impose the protective measures, the objectiveness of the decision and some others.　
　　While strongly urging Japan to retract the decision, China threatened that a possible retaliation would be imminent if Japan did not suspend the restrictions. Japan had given no regard to China’s opposition, arguing it had imposed temporary safeguard measures under the WTO rules, which preclude retaliation. Moreover, it decided on 7 June to temporarily stop the importation of Chinese poultry on alleged ‘bird flu’ fears, while China denied any local outbreak of the virus. On 19 June, the angered China announced it would soon impose “prohibitively high tariffs” on imports of Japanese cars, mobile phones and air-conditioners, with the total value of about US$500 million. Seemingly, this will be the most severe retaliatory measure taken by the Chinese authorities against Japan’s “wrong decision and discriminatory actions”.
　　However, the extra tariffs are not expected to have much influence on Japanese manufacturers since the majority of these brands, except for some cars, are manufactured in China.　The Chinese move was believed to be more symbolic than anything else,　only necessary to dissuade Japan from spreading its protective and discriminatory measures to other Chinese exports　and also to dissuade other countries from adopting similar measures against China.