Green box support measures under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and Chinese agricultural sustainable development

This paper studies the issue of whether/how “Green Box” policies/measures best suit the needs of structural adjustments in the post-WTO era, enabling China to cope effectively with the challenges arising from the transformation of its economic system/structures and opening up of the market, as faced by its agricultural sector, and to achieve the goal of sustainable development for the sector. [...] For the first time ever, the URAA stipulated multilateral disciplines on market access, domestic support and export subsidies, blazing the trail for the liberalization of world trade on agricultural products; however, the agreement was constructed in such a way that it best suited the actual conditions of the developed countries, with little consideration given to the particular needs of agricultu [...] The Green Box reflects more the requirements and policy objectives of the developed countries, and makes few manifestations of the realistic problems typical of the developing countries in promoting their agriculture, such as surplus labour in the rural areas. [...] This paper attempts to analyze the agro-structural changes arising from the WTO accession and the need to expand the use of Green Box measures in the post-WTO era. [...] The paper is divided into five sections: the first (Chapters 1 and 2) systematically examines the relevant disciplinary measures for Green Box support under the Uruguay Round’s Agreement of Agriculture and the evolution and enforcement of Green Box policies in some major developed Members, especially the European Union, the United States and Japan; the second (Chapters 3 and 4), beginning with gen