Spark the G20 spirit to stop US destroying WTO

With the global economy being dangerously-threatened and even damaged by unilateralism and trade bullying, the Monday meeting between China and European Union leaders went beyond the bilateral sphere and injected timely impetus into China-EU ties to save the global multilateral trading system from being destroyed by the unilateralism of the United States.

Both China and the EU, which have benefited hugely from free trade and market liberalization for decades, have pledged to take the lead in speeding up reform of the World Trade Organization, the leading global governance regime set up in the aftermath of the World War II, along with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Having evolved from GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) reached in 1947, the WTO was born in 1995 and as of now it has 164 members, which produce 98 percent of global trade flows. But this rule-based institution has faced tremendous challenges mainly because the US has unilaterally raised tariffs on the imports from its major trade partners, including China - which entered into the WTO in 2001 - the European Union and Japan. The US has even escalated trade tensions with China by warning it will soon impose high tariff on almost half of the imports from China.