Thread by @henrysgao

Thanks @loyaladvisor for this. This would be the most detailed info on the #CAI before the text is out. Here are a few gems I found in the internet sector:

https://twitter.com/loyaladvisor/status/1344281556018409473

1. Cloud services "will now be open to EU investors subject to a 50% equity cap". Good for EU but they are late to the Party, as Amazon AMS has been in China since 6 years ago;

2. The ‘technology neutrality' clause, which ensures that equity caps imposed for telecom VAS won't be applied to other online services such as financial, logistics, medical etc. AFAIK these have never been regarded as VAS to start with and never been subject to VAS equity caps.

3. Another big achievement: "CAI seeks to discipline the behaviour of SOEs by requiring them to act in accordance with commercial considerations and not to discriminate in their purchases and sales of goods or services." But China already agreed to this in its WTO accession deal!

& even the part on resorting to dispute resolution under CAI to assess "whether the behaviour of a specific enterprise complies with the agreed the CAI obligations" is nothing new, as the EU already had the option of suing China in the WTO!

Now guess which one will they choose?

4. "transparency obligations on service subsidies": this's a first in China's trade and investment agreements. But let me guess, China probably agreed to this on the condition that this wouldn't be subject to MAI dispute settlement? So it looks nice on paper but can't be enforced

5. Forced technology transfers: I wonder what these "clear rules" are. The way the summary puts it implies an exhaustive rather than illustrative list of prohibited investment requirements or practices. I doubt an exhaustive list would work as people can always get creative.

6. Labor and environment: "China commits, not to use labour and environment standards for protectionist purposes". Am I alone in thinking that this sounds not like China's commitment, but more like EU's commitment?

& on the ILO conventions, China commits to ratifying ILO fundamental conventions. But as I noted 3 years ago, China would have a hard time ratifying conventions relating to the freedom of association, right to organise and collective bargaining.

More details is at e15initiative.org/blogs/chinas-e…

7. The final surprise is the dispute settlement mechanism: so it's state-to-state only? No investor-state? Anyone still remembers the old DS shop at Centre William Rappard? Again, I wonder whether the CAI DS will ever be used.

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