US-China Trade Relations: A Way Forward
Oct 30-2019
The NSD and New York University (NYU) Shanghai hosted a forum in Shanghai on October 27th. One of the major achievements was the release of a joint proposal signed by 37 world-leading trade and law experts, including five Nobel laureates, presenting a way forward for US-China trade relations from academic perspectives.
The proposal lays out a framework encouraging the two sides to incorporate disagreements in more refined and easier-to-navigate bilateral discussions and simplify conflict resolutions that go beyond the WTO rules.
The framework mainly consists of “Four Baskets”: a policy in question will be assigned to any of the Four Baskets based on its foreseeable harms to other countries, and each basket corresponds to a set of negotiation and policy reaction strategy. Trade representatives from the two sides can rely on such an arrangement to work towards the re-balancing of global economic structure, and avoid escalation of punitive policies or improper damages to a third country.
The joint proposal was drafted by a working team comprising 10 Chinese and American scholars and signed by 27 more upon its completion. Prof. Yao Yang, Dean of the NSD, headed the working team together with Prof. Dani Rodrik of the Harvard Kennedy School and Prof. Jeffrey S. Lehman of NYU Shanghai.
“That Chinese and American scholars jointly release such a proposal signifies the common ground between the two countries,” said Prof. Yao. “Such open discussions and the resultant consensus will prove conducive for policy making.”
Prof. Yao and Prof. Lehman met in May this year and decided to work with scholars of both countries to help close the gaps in US-China trade relations. In August, the working team held its first meeting in New York.
Prof. Justin Lin, Honorary Dean of the NSD and Nobel laureates such as Prof. Eric Maskin and Prof. Joseph Stiglitz were among the signatories.
