Beijing wants market economy status on summit agenda (draft)

Beijing has been pushing the EU to acknowledge its right to be formally recognised as a market economy since December 2016. In its proposal for a joint statement of the EU-China summit of 29 June, Beijing wants the EU to state that “Article 15 of the Protocol of China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) shall expire at the end of 2016”. This would make it much harder for the EU to protect its markets against low-priced Chinese exports…