(Source: Leeham News and Comment; posted Sept. 26, 2016)
Both are under development by companies that get state aid and make no bones about it. The aid would likely be found in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.
But the most vociferous opponent to illegal subsidies hasn’t said a peep about it.
Neither has the opponent’s rival—although this company publicly recognizes the irony of it all.
I call it hypocrisy.
China and Russia
The two airplanes under development are the COMAC C919 and the Irkut MC-21. These directly challenge the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families.
Yet Boeing, which last Thursday crowed about thumping Airbus at the WTO, never filed a complaint about China’s open, multi-billion dollar state support to COMAC, which has open ambitions about becoming the next competitor to Boeing.
Nor has Boeing filed any complaint about Russian aid to Irkut. (Complaints would actually be filed by the US Trade Representative, but the office won’t act without Boeing’s urging.)
Airbus once did make a meek inquiry with the WTO about COMAC, but it was a low-level inquiry and not a complaint. As far as I know, nothing has been said about Irkut.
But Airbus has said, many times, the dispute between Airbus and Boeing over subsidies is ill-advised because of the can of worms it could open if similar complaints were filed about China in particular and to a lesser extent about Russia. (end of excerpt)
Click here for the full story, on the Leeham News website.
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