China to Give Up Developing Country Status... "Will Not Demand Benefits in WTO Negotiations"

Li Qiang Announces at Global Development Initiative Meeting... WTO Director-General "Applauds Leadership"

Reuters: "Resolves a Point of Contention with the U.S. That Has Been a Hindrance to Trade Negotiations"

Chinese Premier Li Qiang [AP Yonhap News Agency File Photo. Reproduction and database prohibited]

China has announced that it will no longer seek special treatment granted to developing countries in World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.

This decision is being interpreted as an effort to facilitate trade negotiations with the United States, which has long pointed to the abuse of developing country status and called for China to voluntarily relinquish it.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported on the 24th that Chinese Premier Li Qiang stated at a high-level meeting of the Global Development Initiative (GDI) held in the United States, "In all current and future WTO negotiations, China will not seek new special and differential treatment."

Premier Li is currently visiting the United States to attend the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, and this statement was made at a separate meeting hosted by China.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala posted on her social media (SNS), "The fruit of many years of hard work," and "I applaud China's leadership on this issue."

The WTO provides developing countries with preferential treatment (SDT), including grace periods for rule implementation, relaxed obligations for trade liberalization, technical and financial assistance, and protective measures for certain sectors such as agriculture and food security.

There are no official criteria or definitions for developing country status; countries acquire this status through self-declaration.

South Korea, for instance, declared itself a developing country upon joining the WTO in 1995 and officially relinquished its developing country status in October 2019, 25 years after joining.

This decision is interpreted as China accepting the demands of the Trump administration, which has publicly criticized the misuse of developing country status and called for WTO reform.

During his first term, President Trump, in 2019, demanded that economically capable countries like China voluntarily abandon their developing country status, arguing they were receiving unfair trade benefits by exploiting it.

South Korea's relinquishment of its WTO developing country status came just three months after President Trump initiated such pressure.

Reuters reported on Premier Li Qiang's announcement, stating it came "after trade disputes arose between the world's two largest economies over broad tariffs imposed by the United States and China's retaliatory measures."

Bloomberg News assessed that "(China's relinquishment of WTO developing country privileges) resolves a point of contention with the U.S. that has been a hindrance to trade negotiations." Yonhap News Agency