On August 19, the Japanese government asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to set up a dispute settlement expert group to deal with the case of Chinas imposition of anti-dumping duties on its stainless steel products. This also means that Japans previous bilateral consultations with China failed, so it began to start the dispute settlement expert group procedure.

   In July 2019, China began to impose anti-dumping duties on stainless steel slabs and hot-rolled stainless steel flat products imported from Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and the European Union for a period of five years. Japan believes that the decision and investigation procedures of the Chinese authorities are flawed and do not comply with the relevant provisions of the WTO. In June 2021, Japan proposed to conduct bilateral consultations with China under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.