Legal Capacity, Ideational Change, and the Ramifications of Strategic Shift in China’s WTO Disputes

• In Event: China, Global Economic Engagement, and International Responses

Abstract

Why and when do powerful states modify their legal approaches to global trade disputes, and what are the consequences of these decisions? In the period surrounding the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008, China took a more assertive approach to global trade litigation, which marked an unexpected change in its legal strategy. Previously, China’s strategic caution regarding trade disputes led it to favor settlement and to avoid litigation. Understanding China’s shifting international legal strategy has major implications for contemporary policy debates such as the viability of the US-led global economic order and the origins of the US-China “trade war”. This paper assesses competing explanations and proposes a framework that highlights the interaction of two explanatory variables—homegrown legal capacity and elite ideation—to explain these shifts. This argument not only sheds light on current trends in global trade politics, it also has the potential to clarify the broader influence of critical historical junctures in shaping the possibilities of the post-WW2 liberal international order.

Author

• Jonathan J. Kinkel, Arizona State University