China urged the United States to drop its latest Section 301 investigations into alleged excess capacity, calling the probe legally flawed at a Washington hearing just days before a planned summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
“[It] lacks sufficient statutory basis and supporting evidence” and “circumvents several established multilateral mechanisms”, Michelle Zang, speaking on behalf of the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC), a state-backed trade body, told the hearing.
The US Trade Representative (USTR) launched on March 11 investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 into structural excess capacity among 16 trading partners, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the European Union and several Southeast Asian countries.
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Tuesday’s hearing comes less than two weeks before Trump’s planned visit to China, where trade disputes are expected to feature prominently in talks with Xi. If the investigation finds unfair trade practices, defined as “unreasonable acts”, it could give the White House a legal basis to impose new tariffs on China and other major trading partners.
Zang, who is also a senior lecturer in international trade law at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington, was speaking on behalf of the CCOIC, which operates under China’s Ministry of Commerce as the trade promotion arm of the state-supervised China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
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“Excess capacity is an economic condition, not a government conduct,” Zang said. “We urge the investigation to accurately identify government conduct with specificity, not merely point to aggregate economic outcomes.”