Green Trade Barriers: a Nightmare and a Blessing to Developing Countries

On November 12th, 2001, China entered into the WTO in the capacity of a developing country. This was an important step in implementing China's fundamental policy of opening itself to the outside world, and has created excellent conditions for its further participation in international trade and economic globalization. But in recent years, a new trend has appeared in world trade: some developed countries have created a barrier to others entering their home markets for new trade by imposing a higher environmental quality standard than that of developing countries. They utilize a high environmental standard as an entry condition, in order to restrict imports, with the result that the traditional trade barrier has now been supplemented by a new environmental barrier - a "green trade barrier". Concerning the above issues, firstly, this book presents the background in which green trade barriers appeared in international trade, and then we analyze their basic characteristics and multi-faceted influences on China's export trade. After all the analysis, we suggest some potential countermeasures on both the micro and the macro levels to overcome green trade barrier