trade practices and has called on the WTO to “get tough” on Beijing, arguing that the country is no longer a developing nation. Moreover, she pointed to intellectual property theft and unfair industrial subsidies provided by Beijing, claiming that Western democracies may lose their place in the global order if tough measures are not implemented.
“The WTO was established when China was 10 per cent the size of the US economy,” she told the Financial Times ahead of the G7 meeting last month. “It is ludicrous that it is still self-designating as a developing country – and those rules need to change.”
On the other hand, the British trade secretary is also attempting to paint an image of post-Brexit Britain as a defender of free trade, as she repeatedly calls for stricter enforcement of WTO rules.
“The WTO needs to modernise and tackle big global issues like climate change and technological advancement,” a spokeswoman for the trade department said ahead of Friday’s meeting. “We need a new set of digital trade rules for the 21st century, and more needs to be done to tackle pernicious practices like industrial subsidies so trade is fair as well as free.”
