US says something 'terribly wrong' at WTO, China in fantasy land

The new U.S. Ambassador to the World Trade Organization Dennis Shea told the WTO’s membership on Tuesday that something had gone “terribly wrong” with judges at the world body and that China’s arguments showed it was living in a fantasy.

Addressing the WTO’s General Council for the first time, Shea said “something has gone terribly wrong in this system when those charged with adjudicating the rules are so consistently disregarding those very rules,” according to a copy of his remarks provided to Reuters.

He also urged the WTO to “confront the havoc of China’s state capitalism”, and ridiculed Beijing’s response to U.S. legal moves against alleged intellectual property theft, saying: “We have now entered the realm of Alice in Wonderland.”

Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Stephanie Nebehay