On August 7, 2021, the Network of International Trade and Investment System (NITIS) successfully held its first internal seminar online. Under the theme of "WTO plurilateral negotiations, current status, prospects and China's position", this seminar invited Hong Xiaodong, from China Society for World Trade Organization Studies and the former Director General of Department of WTO Affairs of Ministry of Commerce, to give a keynote speech, Professor Tu Xinquan, Dean of CIWTO, UIBE and Professor Gong Baihua of Fudan University Law School served as commentators. More than 50 experts and scholars participated in the discussion.

The meeting was presided over by Yi Xiaozhun, the general consultant of NITIS, former Chinese ambassador to WTO and former deputy director-general of WTO. He said, plurilateral negotiation was of vital importance both in practice and research in solving the problem of "negotiation and decision-making mechanism" in WTO reform. Discussions on the present status, prospects and China’s position of WTO plurilateral negotiations would help us participate in WTO reforms and lead the WTO moving forward.

Hong Xiaodong delivered a keynote report entitled "Background, Prospect and Suggestions for WTO plurilateral Negotiation". Director Hong said that the open plurilateral negotiation based on most-favored-nation treatment was actually a second-best choice considering the reality, especially when traditional multilateral negotiations could hardly make any progress. Compared with traditional multilateral negotiation, plurilateral negotiation had advantages of flexibility and pragmatism, yet disadvantages as well. According to Hong, plurilateral negotiation was not only a realistic and flexible choice for WTO members to promote negotiations, but also the only feasible way to push forward the multilateral trading system in the next decade or even longer. Based on this, Director Hong put forward constructive suggestions for plurilateral negotiations from the perspective of decision-making mechanism and negotiation topics. Professor Gong Baihua and Professor Tu Xinquan made comments on the report. Professor Gong Baihua said that the topic of plurilateral negotiation was of great practical significance. Meanwhile, he further shared his insights on the definition of plurilateral negotiation and the preconditions of plurilateral negotiation model. Professor Tu Xinquan spoke highly of Director Hong’s report, and at the same time expressed his views on the definition of plurilateral negotiations, ethical issues, exclusive issues, and challenges faced by plurilateral negotiations.

Translator: JI Yan

Reviewer: LI Xiaofan