"It's total nonsense that Japan said it will keep pace with Europe and the U.S. by not admitting China's market economy status," said Chinese expert Cheng Cheng.

According to Japanese media, the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has denied China's market economy status (MEP), claiming that it will continue to impose anti-dumping duties. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Dec. 8 at a Trans-Pacific Partnership meeting that dumping by Chinese state-owned enterprises violates market order. He pointed out that Chinese steel enterprises are selling their products at a very low price due to China's overcapacity, saying such behaviors have caused huge losses for steel enterprises in other parts of the world.

However, Dec. 11 marks the 15th anniversary of China's entrance to the WTO. The organization should admit China's MEP based on China’s WTO accession protocol. Bai Ming, an expert from the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview that Japan violates the rules of market economy when it tries to contain China's economic and trade development through tariff increases. This behavior will not only cause new conflicts between the two countries, but will also negatively impact their already-weak mutual trust, he added.

In addition, starting in 2019, Japan has decided to remove China, Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico and Thailand from its preferential tariff framework, claiming that China is not a market economy and that the latter nations violated international market rules through dumping.

Some experts believe that Japan also wishes to cover its financial deficit by removing China from the framework. According to the Japanese Ministry of Finance, imports from the 50 developing countries that enjoyed preferential tariffs in 2015 reached 1.32 trillion yen, among which goods from China accounted for more than 60 percent. Japan lost 33 billion yen due to preferential tariffs, and more than 90 percent of those losses came from the five countries above.

Cheng holds that removing China from the preferential tariffs framework is totally different from the denial of China's MEP. He said Japan has no advantage in the economic gamble with China and the U.S., and that Japan has to take unfair measures in order to contain China.