The booming Chinese clean energy sector, now more than a million jobs strong, is quickly coming to dominate the production of technologies essential to slowing global warming and other forms of air pollution. Such technologies are needed to assure adequate energy as the world’s population grows by nearly a third, to nine billion people by the middle of the century, while oil and coal reserves dwindle.
But much of China’s clean energy success lies in aggressive government policies that help this crucial export industry in ways most other governments do not. These measures risk breaking international rules to which China and almost all other nations subscribe, according to some trade experts interviewed by The New York Times.
via www.nytimes.com
I've read only the first page so I might be missing something, but anyway: The static analysis of export subsidies clearly indicates that the nation doing the subsidizing loses. The cost of the subsidy and losses to domestic consumers outweigh the gain to the exporting industry.
The dynamic effects are not so clear. If the export subsidies triggers some sort of positive spillover (e.g., learning by doing that leads to a reduction in production cost) then the exporting country might benefit.
But either way, export subsidies unambiguously benefit importing countries by lowering the price of imported goods.
And I like this:
But China has virtually ignored the requirement since joining the W.T.O. Contending that it is still a developing country struggling to understand its commitments, China has filed just one list of subsidies, which were in place between 2001 and 2004. And that one list covered only central government policies while omitting local or provincial subsidies.
Reminds me of an unfrozen caveman lawyer.
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