, Columnist
China's Worst Trade Abuses Are Hidden
Some barriers are more damaging than tariffs.
Not welcome.
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China is nothing if not creative in protecting its local industries. Although it has liberalized its economy in recent years, it has also erected a sophisticated set of barriers to safeguard companies it views as national champions. Increasingly, this is a counterproductive approach.
The usual method of assessing protectionism is to look at metrics such as tariff rates. And by that measure, China remains one of the least open major economies: According to the World Trade Organization, it maintains an average most-favored nation tariff of 9.6 percent on imports, compared with 5.3 percent in the European Union and 3.5 percent in the U.S.