Editor’s note for Thursday, January 27, 2022

My thoughts today:

Is the WTO back in play? The World Trade Organization (WTO), which China joined on December 11, 2001, has been out of the news in recent years. The global trade organization was founded in 1995 at the height of the pre-9/11 optimism about the potential of commerce to transform the world. It has been toothless in the face of Chinese protectionism, American tariffs, and other violations of its rules and principles. But today’s news includes a host of stories about world trade and the WTO’s role in it:

• The European Union has launched a case against China at the WTO “over alleged trade restrictions that were imposed on Lithuania after the small Baltic country allowed Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius under a name that suggests it is separate from China,” per the Wall Street Journal, or see the Financial Times or Al Jazeera.
• The WTO yesterday authorized China to impose retaliatory tariffs “worth $645 million on imports from the U.S. in a decade-old dispute over Chinese subsidies to promote exports of products such as solar panels and steel pipes,” reports the WSJ.

Internet censorship as trade barrier? In a related development, “The top U.S. senators on the committee that oversees trade urged the Biden administration to fight back against nations including China and Russia after a new report found that their censorship actions hurt internet users and hinder American companies like Google parent Alphabet and Apple,” Bloomberg reports.

Meanwhile, U.S. Democrats pushing for a bill that would “pour billions of dollars into scientific research and development and shore up domestic manufacturing” to counter China, according to the New York Times.

Our word of the day is Russia’s legitimate security concerns (俄罗斯的合理安全关切 èluósī de hélǐ ānquán guānqiè).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief