US probe on Chinese wind power products hurts both sides
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People's Daily, January 30, 2012
On Jan. 18, the U.S. Department of Commerce officially announced that it would launch an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation on the utility scale wind tower from China. It was another anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation met by China's clean energy products in the United States after the investigation on the photovoltaic product from China.
Insiders said that the successive investigations on new energy products indicate that the competition between China and the United States in the new energy area is becoming fiercer and the United States' intention of adopting trade protection measures in this area is getting stronger.
Anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation targets wind power generation product
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the product under this investigation is the utility scale wind tower from China. According to the statistics by the U.S. customs, the total trade volume of the products involved in investigations in 2010 was 104 million U.S. dollars.
The U.S. Department of Commerce will make the preliminary subsidy and dumping decisions on March 23 and June 6.
U.S. anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation contains political goal
Liu Pengxu, a lawyer with China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said China does not believe its wind power equipment enterprises have caused losses of the United States' relevant industries. Relevant U.S. companies have also said that they prefer products made in China because they are good in quality, delivery and service.
Supporting the clean energy industry is a normal international practice. China’s support to its clean energy industry does not violate rules of the WTO. Therefore, it is unreasonable that United States launched the investigation using this excuse.
Now that the presidential election of the United States is coming, the U.S. government has given many speeches on its domestic new energy policy and expressed to support its new energy industry. Due to this political environment, people have a reason to believe that the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation contains a political goal.
Abusing trade remedy hurts both sides
Insiders believe that the United States has deliberately started several trade frictions in the clean energy. It not only damages the China-U.S. energy cooperation and the U.S. energy industry's interests but also goes against the general trend that the whole world is dealing with the climate change and energy security challenge jointly. If the United States realizes its goal in this investigation, China's normal wind tower export to the United States will definitely be affected.
Liu said that the investigation will negatively affect China's enterprises for sure, and some relevant U.S. companies may not support it either.
Since the enterprises involved in this investigation are not many and the total trade volume is only about 100 million U.S. dollars, insiders said that this investigation will not negatively affect China's wind power industry too much.
According to sources, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products is organizing China's wind power equipment manufacturing and export enterprises to deal with the investigation.
The chamber is also calling on relevant U.S. governmental departments to pay close attention to this investigation, deal with relevant issues according to the principles of equality, justness, transparency and marketization, and prevent China-U.S. energy cooperation from being damaged by their actions.
