China urges WTO members to stop assessing dumping duties on Chinese products by using a third country's 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.
"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 U.S.," said Shen.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been frequent anti-dumping investigations launched by markets such as the EU and U.S. targeting China's steel exports.
MOFCOM reiterated at Friday's press conference that the world is confronting oversupply in the steel industry due to declining global demand and economic downturn.
