The Pan securitization of Forced Labor Issues: A New Impact on the International Economic and Trade Order | Expert Hot Comment

Recently, the United States and the West have been promoting the widespread securitization of forced labor issues, which has impacted the international economic and trade order.

On March 12th Eastern Time, the United States announced the launch of a 301 investigation into restrictions on so-called forced labor products, involving 60 economies including China. In recent years, the argument of the United States and the West hyping up "overcapacity" in China's new energy and other industries has continued to heat up, and related fallacies are intertwined and stacked, reflecting the profound changes in the international economic and trade order in recent times, that is, the game of rules has extended from traditional tariff barriers to the field of values, and the trend towards pan security and pan politicization is becoming increasingly evident.

The essence of applying policy tools related to "labor issues" in the United States and the West

From the perspective of policy tools, there are significant differences between the United States' use of Section 301 and the European Union's Prohibition of Forced Labor Regulation. The Office of the United States Trade Representative conducted a labor rights investigation under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, but lacked domestic compliance procedures. On February 20th, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration's reciprocal tariff policy was unconstitutional. The Trump administration's initiation of the "Section 301" review is clearly a measure to rebuild tariff barriers.

It is worth noting that such policies follow the core conventions of the International Labour Organization at the legislative level, but there are issues with selective application and excessive discretion in specific implementation. The mechanical application of relevant terms and policy tools by the United States and the West is highly likely to have a serious impact on the international industrial division of labor based on comparative advantages.

The discourse trap of the "overcapacity" argument and China's reality

In the context of intensified competition in international economic and trade rules, the discourse of "overcapacity" and the issue of forced labor are converging. Previously, officials such as the US Treasury Secretary have repeatedly hyped up China's new energy industry's "overcapacity", claiming that it "disrupts global prices and production patterns". This argument clearly ignores the fundamental fact of the current global market, that is, the global green transformation still faces a huge capacity gap. According to the International Energy Agency's calculations, the global demand for new energy vehicles will reach 45 million by 2030, and the demand for newly installed photovoltaic capacity will reach 820 gigawatts, which is 4.5 times and 4 times higher than in 2022, respectively. Against the backdrop of more than 130 countries and regions proposing carbon neutrality goals, the global demand for green production capacity far exceeds existing output.

The Deep Changes in the International Economic and Trade Environment and the Anti Criticism Voices of the International Community

By analyzing the recent developments and arguments in the international economic and trade field between the United States and the West, we can gain insight into the following three changes in the current international economic and trade environment: firstly, the value orientation of rule-based games. Labor standards, environmental protection, and other issues have been given higher moral values, becoming a "reasonable" basis for building trade barriers. The second is the ideological bias of supply chain competition. Due diligence on forced labor requires companies to conduct compliance reviews of the entire supply chain, which will significantly increase transaction costs and compliance risks. The third challenge is the hollowing out of multilateral governance mechanisms. The United States has bypassed the rules of the World Trade Organization and reshaped trade barriers through unilateral legislation, seriously undermining the authority of the multilateral trading system.

Faced with profound changes in the international economic and trade environment, China has always participated in the formulation of global labor governance rules with an open attitude, insisting on responding to various false accusations based on market demand and industrial laws. The weaponization of the issue of forced labor is essentially a form of protectionism in the name of morality. However, market choices are far more persuasive than political narratives - whether there is overcapacity or not, the market will naturally give the answer.

(The authors of this article are Liang Guojie, a professor at the Regional School of Nations at Dalian University and executive director of the Center for the Study of Indian Ocean Island Countries at Dalian University; Zhao Shuhao, from the School of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University)