China should be mindful of increased trade frictions with European countries and the United States, Yi Xiaozhun, permanent representative of China to the WTO warned on March 4.

In 2012, the EU launched anti-dumping investigations into photovoltaic cells from China valued at over $20 billion, affecting the entire Chinese photovoltaic cell industry.

Yi said that trade restriction measures adopted by European countries and the United States have evolved from simple anti-dumping measures to countervailing and anti-subsidies measures and even a combination of anti-dumping and countervailing measures.

Trade frictions have also expanded from low-end sectors like textiles and shoes to high-end sectors such as the photovoltaic and telecommunications industries, he said.

Over half of the world's countervailing measures are directed against China, and 70 percent of U.S. countervailing measures are aimed at China, he said.

"We must resolutely oppose such trade protectionism abuse," Yi said. "Otherwise, China will see an increasingly worse export environment."

Downgrading Japan

On March 4, Dagong Global Credit Rating Co., a Beijing-based credit rating agency, downgraded the local currency sovereign credit rating of Japan from A+ to A, and its foreign currency rating from AA- to A+, with a negative outlook.

"The new economic policies of the Abe government will critically exacerbate the fiscal situation and cannot solve the entrenched problems constraining national wealth creation capability," Dagong said.

"The economy will remain in a prolonged slump, whereby the risk of the outbreak of a sovereign credit crisis rises." The key reasons cited for the downgrade are the recent recession, and the new economic policies of the Abe government that have failed to solve the structural problems restricting economic growth.