The US has long argued China should give up the developing-country status because it is the world’s second-largest economy.
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China has said it would no longer seek the special treatment given to developing countries in World Trade Organization agreements — a change long demanded by the United States.
Commerce Ministry officials said on Wednesday the move was an attempt to boost the global trading system at a time when it is under threat from tariff wars and protectionist moves by individual countries to restrict imports.
They did not mention the United States by name or President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs on many other countries this year, including China.
The US has long argued China should give up the developing-country status because it is the world’s second-largest economy. The advantages of that designation at the WTO include lower requirements to open their markets to imports and longer transition periods to implement such market-opening steps. The developing-country status also exempts China from contributing to a climate change fund.
The WTO provides a forum for global trade talks and enforces agreements but has become less effective, prompting calls for reform.
The head of the Geneva-based organisation described the Chinese move as “major news key to WTO reform” and applauded and thanked the country's leaders in a post on X.
“This is a culmination of many years of hard work,” wrote Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO director-general.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced the change in a speech in New York on Tuesday to a China-organised development forum at the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly.
Responding to the decision in Brussels, European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said: “We welcome China’s decision to no longer avail itself of developing-country status in future trade agreements, but… we firmly believe China should stop availing itself of developing-country status under also existing agreements.”
He added that the European Union remains committed to reforming the WTO.
The trade body is notably re-evaluating the way it solves disputes after the US in 2019 stopped appointing adjudicators to the WTO’s Appellate Body, viewed as the supreme court for international trade. Since December 2019, the body has been unable to hear appeals as it no longer holds a minimum number of judges.
China is a middle-income country, and the nation’s Commerce Ministry officials emphasised that it remains part of the developing world.
Increasingly, though, it has become a source of loans and technical assistance to other countries seeking to build roads, railways, dams and other major projects, often undertaken by major Chinese state-owned companies.
