Steve Charnovitz
12 April 2020
According to the Wall Street Journal, the government of China is now providing "a 9% rebate on the export of animal products, such as edible snakes and turtles, primate meat, beaver and civet musk, and rhino horns, despite banning their domestic trade." A bounty on exports is illegal per se under SCM Article 3 of the World Trade Organization (WTO). But applying an export subsidy to a domestically prohibited good would seem especially heinous as it compounds the moral transgression in allowing exports of domestically prohibited goods. In light of the descent of the world economy into rampant autarkic and protectionist policies, I will not be able to keep track of or chronicle all of them.
But China's transgressions in the WTO are paralleled by its serious transgressions of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in not immediately notifying the World Health Organization (WHO) of the SARs outbreak in November, but rather waiting until the last day of December. I am not an expert on the IHR, but on a perusal, I do not see any requirement to carry out containment efforts rapidly and effectively. I also do not see any rule requiring governments like China to prevent zoonotic infections occurring in laboratories or to notify WHO and neighboring countries about any such human errors. So the IHR would seem to be ripe for renegotiating and I would urge the WHO to proceed in a process open to participation by the civic and private sectors.
I have always been a strong supporter of China's entry into the world economy and into the WTO. I have admired China's forward looking competitiveness policies and its positive actions on climate. But China has not shown much leadership in the WHO; in fact, China's paltry funding of the WHO and its objections to Taiwan's membership betray China's global leadership and should be roundly condemned.
