A concerted effort is being made by some Western powers and Japan, their local ally in Asia, to continue using the "proxy method" for measuring the price of imports from China.

To China's dismay, these countries have determined to keep using the method despite a pledge made by the members of the World Trade Organization upon China's accession to the world's free trade regime in 2001 that they would drop the method after 15 years.

Their decision is based, they claim, on the consideration that China remains a non-market economy. But it ignores the contractual period that they themselves agreed upon, while their decision that China is not a market economy is one made by their governments, and hence political.