Is China a protectionist country? From the accession to the WTO to Trump's trade war.

Abstract

My Master’s degree dissertation has the purpose of answering to a question which has come to me many times during my two years of Master’s degree: is China a protectionist country? In order to give a complete and truthful answer to this question I decided to analyze China’s case starting from a broader prospective, so I began with the concept and notion of protectionism, when and how it was born and how it developed during the centuries in different countries around the world and in different historical situations. In the first chapter I also more generally discussed the tools used to implement protectionism and the impact that it can have on a country that decides to apply these kind of measures. After the first chapter, whose aim is to give a broad introduction to the idea of protectionism, I focused my attention on the Chinese economy and how it opened up to global markets, the difficulties encountered and the adhesion of the PRC to one of the most important organizations all over the world: the WTO. I described how its accession to the WTO changed the world order and how it changed the regulations governing its domestic market. The last and most important chapter is divided in three main parts. The first is about those regulations that have the purpose to protect the Chinese economy like the import and customs duties regulations of China and focuses also on those social and cultural aspects which cannot be found in the legislation but are equally important. The second part deals with the problems and disputes that China had to face after its adhesion to the WTO, while the last part is focused on the tensions and threats of a new possible trade war caused by Donald Trump’s election and the current reaction of China. All of the informations in this final thesis helped me to clarify my doubts and to give a decisive answer to the initial question: is China a protectionist country?