China–Cellulose Pulp : China’s quest to satisfy WTO panels and the appellate body

Abstract

In April 2017, a WTO panel ruled that China’s anti-dumping investigation into imports of dissolving cellulose pulp from Canada violated the WTO’s Anti-dumping Agreement. The panel found that China’s description of the parallel price trends of dumped imports and domestic products failed to explain their finding that the dumped imports caused the decline in domestic prices. The ruling perhaps should not have surprised anyone as the WTO had made similar findings in disputes involving two previous Chinese anti-dumping investigations. This paper explores to what degree “parallel price trends” can be used as a valid methodology to determine price depression, and whether it is the methodology itself that is problematic or China’s implementation of that methodology that has caused it to lose three disputes over the past five years.