Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Strengthening Compliance Work for Trade Policies (hereinafter, the “Opinions”), which expressly require governments at all levels to conduct compliance assessments, based on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and China’s WTO accession commitments, before formulating policies involving trade, so as to contribute to building a new system for a higher-standard open economy and to accelerating the creation of a new development paradigm.

On March 30, the English-language program “The World Today” on CGTN (China Global Television Network) aired an exclusive interview with Professor Ji Wenhua WTO Co-Chair at UIBE, interpreting the main content and institutional significance of the Opinions.

Professor Ji pointed out that, compared with the 2014 version, the Opinions achieve several key enhancements. First, the scope has been expanded from provincial-level policies to encompass various policy measures formulated by local people’s governments at or above the county level. Second, the Opinions make clear that compliance assessment is a necessary pre-promulgation step for trade policies and add requirements concerning oversight and enforcement. Third, they expressly stipulate, under the principle of “who formulates, who assesses,” that drafters must assess whether proposed policy measures are compliant. Fourth, they clarify and emphasize the procedures for China’s responses to foreign parties’ compliance concerns.

Professor Ji also noted that, in the face of the current instability and uncertainty in the international economic and trade system, strengthening compliance capacity is of great significance. On the one hand, the issuance of the Opinions indicates that the Chinese government remains committed to a rules-based multilateral governance system and to fair competition, which will help rally more Members to support multilateralism and to resist unilateralism and protectionism. On the other hand, the Opinions establish a mechanism for external compliance assessment, under which China can systematically evaluate other Members’ trade policies and actively engage in consultations and negotiations, thereby identifying and addressing non-compliant practices by foreign parties in a timely manner. This is an important step in China’s reform process and international cooperation, and it will help guide the global trading system toward greater fairness and rationality.

Original text and video link attached：

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-03-30/VHJhbnNjcmlwdDgzNzU0/index.html

Link:  

https://law.uibe.edu.cn/xwzx/mtmf_b1595cb9968f474496ec7126a61abb44/100ede7387784c2ca34b33027ab00ece.htm