How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? US-Countervailing Measures (China) (21.5)

Abstract

The rise of China as a genuine world power, economically and militarily, constitutes the gravest challenge faced by the liberal international order constructed in the aftermath of the Great Depression and the Second World War. A major source of strain in the trade relations between China and the other core members of the liberal world trading system is its extensive use of state-owned enterprises as an instrument of general (domestic) economic policy. This paper builds on Ruggie’s theory of embedded liberalism and the theory of economic policy to characterize the political and economic difficulties and opportunities in moving toward a new regime for dealing with subsidies. The conclusion sketches some goals such a regime should seek to embody.