The United States continues to attack China and the World Trade Organization. A memorandum from the US president to the US trade representative, dated July 26, calls on the latter to use every available means to reform the developing country status in the World Trade Organization, to prevent self-declared developing countries, such as China, Turkey, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, from availing themselves of special treatment and taking on weaker commitments. The memo threatens the US will unilaterally revoke the special and preferential trade treatments granted to these countries unless substantial progress is made in reforming the WTO developing country status within 90 days.

The move once again tries to replace global rules with US law. It has cast a dark shadow over multilateralism, but is destined to hit a wall of opposition and end in failure.

Special and differentiated treatment is the basic and legitimate right endowed to WTO members with developing-country status. The benefits include longer time frames to implement commitments, greater flexibility in adopting measures such as export subsidies to adapt to global markets and procedural advantages for WTO disputes. Given the gaps between developing and developed countries, developing country status is a basic principle and pillar of the WTO, embodying the inclusiveness of the multilateral trading system. Many developed countries of today benefitted from long periods of special and differentiated treatment from GATT rules before.

It goes without saying that the US is attempting to deprive some developing countries such as China of the legitimate rights and interests they are entitled to by overstressing selective indicators, for example the size of their economies. It is undeniable that, after being admitted to the WTO in 2001, China is much richer as a whole than it used to be and much closer to developed countries than before, and that China has become the world's second-largest economy.

However, the gap between China and developed countries is too yawning to miss in terms of economic and social development. In fact, the development level of a country cannot be assessed by total GDP alone. Broad-based indicators, including per capita income, technological strength, economic structure and quality of development, to name a few, also need to be considered.

Multilateralism must address the needs of those who have been left behind. According to the World Bank World Development Indicators database, China's GDP per capita in purchasing power parity (constant 2011 international dollar) was $16,186.79, only 29 percent that of the US in 2018.

It has prominent imbalanced development and income inequality across regions, with 40.85 percent of the total population living in rural areas and over 10 million people still living in extreme poverty. China ranked 25th out of 119 countries in the 2018 Global Hunger Index, and 24th out of 101 countries in the 2018 Multidimensional Poverty Index. In contrast, countries such as Singapore and South Korea did not feature on either list.

The US' demand to change the status quo of multilateral institutions has some merit. Over decades, the WTO has helped many countries around the world lift millions of people out of poverty, raise living standards and achieve unprecedented levels of economic growth, especially for the richest developing economies and regions such as Singapore, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Hong Kong and Qatar.

But the global rules indeed appear increasingly outdated; accordingly, there is a need to fuse those aspects of the existing multilateralism that remain useful into new arrangements that are better aligned with today's world. However, the underlying WTO rules and principles of multilateral institutions - that issues be addressed multilaterally rather than bilaterally - should be respected and not be trampled on. By changing the WTO rules for its own benefit, the US would make multilateralism a relic from a distant past.

Since taking office, the US leader has rolled out his "America first" agenda, which is against the underlying values and principles of multilateralism. His administration has embraced inward-looking nationalism, its trade agenda being driven by a narrow mercantilism that privileges the interests of US corporations above those of all others. With rising populism and protectionism, tariffs are being unilaterally imposed on adversaries and many longtime allies alike, based on the grounds of national security.

Multilateralism is in retreat, which is due, more than anything else, to the changed attitude of the US. The US leader is apparently cynical toward the international order and has vowed to destroy such multilateral institutions as the WTO. The US withdrawals from one international agreement after another have astounded and embittered its allies, causing the trans-Atlantic alliance to visibly and rapidly weaken.

As regards the WTO, the US was its principal architect, and it has been the WTO's principal backer and principal beneficiary. But the US leader has at times complained that it treats the US unfairly and has threatened to pull out of the international trade body. The US administration has blocked the appointment of judges to the WTO's trade court in protest against its rulings, which it regards as having favored China over the US.

The multilateral institutions that support core values such as fairness, inclusiveness, and sustainability are currently under increasing threat and being called into question, posing a serious risk to future prosperity.

Facing today's complex global challenges, we will all lose in a divided world. We need multilateral settings more than ever to provide us with platforms to communicate ideas, resolve differences, reach consensus in terms of common rules of the game and to draw up the action plans of joint forces. Only when we work together and recommit to the core values and principles of key multilateral organizations, principally the WTO and the United Nations, can we shape a brighter, more prosperous and sustainable future for everyone.

The author is a senior fellow at the International Cooperation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission of China.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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