Chapter 7 is the conclusion and consolidates ideas and findings. This chapter calls for and reflects on the possibility of a more transparent and fair anti-dumping system for all WTO members achieved by promoting procedural justice. It also considers the significance of the findings of the book for international trade law discourse more generally by relating them to contemporary trade issues such as the US–China trade war, Brexit, the WTO crisis and mega free trade agreements.

This chapter critically examines the People’s Republic of China’s engagement with international trade law from the perspectives of rule-taking and rule-making, including China’s pre-reform planned economy-based trade regime, its voluntary internalization of global trade rules in the decade before its World Trade Organization (WTO) accession, trade reform to comply with WTO rules, the China–US trade war (in violation of international trade law) and the Chinese position on WTO reform. It argues that, in its reform and opening-up period (1978–present), China has largely been a rule-taker and a responsible – albeit possibly reluctant at times – status quo power in the United States-led, West-dominated international economic system. On the other hand, it has also taken an instrumentalist approach to international trade law with a foreign trade policy pragmatically oriented towards achieving a balance between trade liberalization and protectionism based on calculated uses of industrial policy tools and non-tariff barriers to support selected domestic industries.

The chapter analyses how trade agreements balance liberalisation of digital trade with cybersecurity concerns. The chapter identifies the strengths, weaknesses, and ambiguities facing digital trade regulation in these agreements. As a way to address the tension between international trade law and cybersecurity, it examines security exception clauses in different trade agreements. It also analyses the efforts found in recent regional trade agreements to direct state parties to have regard to international standards concerning cybersecurity issues. It concludes that harmonisation of such standards would suggest the possibility of a greater coherence in cybersecurity governance.

The chapter explains the evolution of the RCEP and argues that this mega-FTA serves as a milestone for new Asian regionalism. It discusses how the RCEP benefits the legal and political agendas of ASEAN and China and analyzes India’s decision to withdraw from RCEP negotiations in 2019. The chapter sheds light on the RCEP’s role in consolidating rules of origin, regulations services, as well as arguably weaker provisions on investment protection, government procurement and electronic commerce (e-commerce). A comparative analysis is based on contemporary agreements such as ASEAN Plus One FTAs and the CPTPP. Lastly, the chapter assesses the systemic impact of the RCEP on regional and global trading systems. Prospective normative conflicts due to overlapping agreements and the institutionalization of the RCEP Secretariat will be of significance to world trade law.

This chapter examines whether and to what extent emerging countries may be able to engage in alternative approaches to trade regulation among themselves and in their relations to developed economies. It shows that liberal orthodoxy is in retrenchment. It documents the reservations that many emerging powers have about the neoliberal approach, and shows the conflict between some trade rules and state-led development strategies (“developmentalism”). In some areas, emerging powers are resisting liberalization pressures by ignoring certain existing rules, refusing to agree to others, and seeking to create alternative orderings with more flexible standards. However, there is not always consensus within key countries about trade and development policy. They have differences on many aspects of liberalization, and there are limits to their capacity to create alternative economic spaces. While resistance from the South and rising protectionism in the North have stalled the liberalization drive, leaving trade law more open to developmentalism for now, the South has not developed the kind of strong ideological consensus and strategic coordination needed to fundamentally alter the trade regime. Countries are guided by pragmatism and divergent national interests.