China unfairly limits export of raw materials, WTO says

[OhioChick]

Monday, January 30, 2012, 1:58 PM

GENEVA -- The World Trade Organization ruled Monday that China unfairly limited exports of nine raw materials to protect domestic manufacturers.

A WTO appeals body rejected China's appeal of an earlier ruling in July that concluded the Asian economic powerhouse had violated international trade rules. The appeals body largely sided with the United States, European and Mexico, which had taken issue with Chinese restrictions on its exports of nine materials used widely in the steel, aluminum and chemical industries.

They had complained that China drives up prices on overseas shipments of the materials by setting export duties, quotas and licensing requirements on them, giving the country's manufacturers an unfair edge over competitors. But China had argued that its export limits were needed to protect the environment.

The ruling affects China's exports of certain forms of bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorous and zinc. In it, the WTO appeals body says China must now "bring its export duty and export quota measures into conformity with its WTO obligations."

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/01/china_unfairly_limits_export_o.html

[Confusious]

1. WTO sucks

Now you can't decide to limit exports? WTF?

[Posteritatis]

2. I'm sure the suggestion that others have a right to China's mineral resources will go over well. nt

[pampango]

4. Then they shouldn't have joined the WTO if they didn't like the rules.

Something tells me they benefit more from the WTO than it hurts them.

[Guy Montag]

3. What is aggravating about this is they are treating us like a third world resource

for coal, and millions of strip mined coal gets shipped to China every year. This not only exacerbates their air pollution problem and adds to the mercury poisoning component of that situation, it comes back to haunt us as the pollution either blows back here, or adds to climate change problems on the Wet Coast of the U.S.

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/news/coal-study-vista-to-be-largest-export-thermal-coal-mine-in-north-america/1000862429/

From the above link:

"The mine will be developed in two phases, beginning with the eastern half of the deposit for which Coalspur received a mine permit in May 2011. The first phase will see a 5.0 million t/y operation that will begin production in early 2015. Construction of the second phase will follow, with full capacity of 11.2 million t/y reached in 2018.

Coalspur will sell the Vista coal to China, Japan and Korea. The company has a 8.5-t/y throughput agreement with Ridley Terminals on the west coast for 21 years. It has also signed a memorandum of understanding with CN Rail for shipment to the coast."

[TheMadMonk]

9. Excuse me. Europe (whites) for half a millenium has beein doing exacly this...

...And since Henry Ford the UNITED STATES put this sort of destructive exploitation of poorer nations on steroids and continues to do right now.

And now the boot's on the other foot, you want to bitch?

[Guy Montag]

10. You are damn right I want to bitch about stip mining

You destroy good land permanently, as the alleged reclamation standards suck and do not repair what damage is done. In Europe, most mining is below grown. I also live in Oregon and I have seen the problems climate change because of what Chinese polution has done to weather patterns is doing.

True, part of that problem is our over logging that destroys the ability of the land to absorb rain which runs off much faster and causes devastating flooding, but we basically are destroying this beautiful place to allow the Chinese to treat us like a third world resource producer. I also live in Eugene, and they are going to be shipping a lot of the coal out of Coos bay, meaning rail cars full of coal, that lose 800 pounds of coal dust in transit will be passing through here.

Count on us doing non violent civil disobedience on that count, as well as continuing what efforts we can to stop logging without laws.

[TheMadMonk]

12. Europe has it's fair share of strip mines.

Africa has some of the BIGGEST FUCKING HOLES we've ever dug in the ground.

And it appears your biggest beef is that it's happenning in your backyard this time.

Not saying China and the developing world should be given carte blanche, to continue, but your first (in your last post) bitch was that the US was being treated the way the US has treated the rest of the world for the past 70 odd years. As a source of cheap raw materials, with all value adding taking place elsewhere.

[Guy Montag]

13. I've never liked the policies of the International Monitary Fund and world bank that encourages

countries to go into dept by taking out loans that causes them to neglect their people's needs in order to service the debt that results. And I understand how we rip people off with the advantages we gain by having the dollar as the reserve currency in the world.

I also was involved locally in the 1980s when there was much activism concerning the evil of Apartheid, and the need to get the Afrikaner's Nationalist Party out of power, and how the damn Israelis were allied wit them and helped them get past the effects of sanctions which was the start of my alienation with that particular country.

I am an activist that knows what issues I can most effect to help build similar efforts concerning the environment elsewhere. I am familiar with all of what you speak of, including the perils of extinction many important species of animals in the world face, including those if Africa.

And as an activist in her 50s, I have never had a credit card, have only owned a couple of cars and prefer to use the bus or bicycle, and have been arrested many times doing forest activism, and am involved with Eugene. Oregon's branch of the Occupy movement.

So you need not lecture me about political myopia. My biggest problem actually these days is that concerning political burnout becaus eit is so devestatingly dishartening to see what my species has done to itself and the world.

[geekd]

5. are they serious??

china cares about the enviroment?? look at this and keep telling yourself that...

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1870162,00.html

please everyone, take the time to look at these pictures

[lovuian]

6. So is China going to follow the

WTO decision and sell their exports?

[pampango]

8. Time will tell. For now the BBC reports "China said it would abide by the organisation's finding."

In a statement, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk called the ruling "a tremendous victory for the US... particularly its manufacturers and workers".

The US, Europe, and Mexico argued that China's export block on such things as magnesium and bauxite drove up prices.

While the case requires China to comply, the EU "continues to be deeply troubled by China's use of export restrictions'' for other rare earth and industrial raw materials, the European Commission said in a statement.

But China's WTO mission in Geneva said it "deeply regrets'' that the appeals body upheld major parts of the earlier ruling's conclusions.

However, China said it would abide by the organisation's findings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16803072

If China doesn't follow the decision they'll end up paying big fines to the US, Europe and Mexico like the US and Europe pay to Brazil for not abiding by WTO rulings against their domestic cotton and sugar subsidies.

[Found in Yonkers]

7. What a shock!

[ellisonz]

11. Good.

Another article: http://news.yahoo.com/china-rare-earths-safe-wto-ruling-export-curbs-081423742.html

They want to play the game, they have to play by the rules.