PROTOCOL PROVISIONS

Commitments in China's WTO Protocol and Working Party Report establish rights and obligations enforceable through WTO dispute settlement procedures. We have agreed on key provisions relating to antidumping and subsidies, protection against import surges, technology transfer requirements, and offsets, as well as practices of state?owned and state?invested enterprises. These rules are of special importance to U.S. workers and business.

China has agreed to implement the TRIMs Agreement upon accession, eliminate and cease enforcing trade and foreign exchange balancing requirements, as well as local content requirements, refuse to enforce contracts imposing these requirements, and only impose or enforce laws or other provisions relating to the transfer of technology or other know-how, if they are in accordance with the WTO agreements on protection of intellectual property rights and trade?related investment measures.

These provisions will also help protect American firms against forced technology transfers. China has agreed that, upon accession, it will not condition investment approvals, import licenses, or any other import approval process on performance requirements of any kind, including: local content requirements, offsets, transfer of technology, or requirements to conduct research and development in China.

ANTIDUMPING AND SUBSIDIES METHODOLOGY

The agreed protocol provisions ensure that American firms and workers will have strong protection against unfair trade practices including dumping and subsidies. The U.S. and China have agreed that we will be able to maintain our current antidumping methodology (treating China as a non-market economy) in future anti-dumping cases. This provision will remain in force for 15 years after China's accession to the WTO. Moreover, when we apply our countervailing duty law to China we will be able to take the special characteristics of China's economy into account when we identify and measure any subsidy benefit that may exist.

PRODUCT-SPECIFIC SAFEGUARD

The agreed provisions for the protocol package also ensure that American domestic firms and workers will have strong protection against rapid increases of imports.

To do this, the Product-Specific Safeguard provision sets up a special mechanism to address increased imports that cause or threaten to cause market disruption to a U.S. industry. This mechanism, which is in addition to other WTO Safeguards provisions, differs from traditional safeguard measures. It permits United States to address imports solely from China, rather than from the whole world, that are a significant cause of material injury through measures such as import restrictions. Moreover, the United States will be able to apply restraints unilaterally based on legal standards that differ from those in the WTO Safeguards Agreement. This could permit action in more cases. The Product-Specific Safeguard will remain in force for 12 years after China accedes to the WTO.

STATE-OWNED AND STATE-INVESTED ENTERPRISES