Mubasher: China should make concessions in negotiating reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) or risk the US leaving the current system, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said on Friday.

“China has won a lot from the WTO system, and we call on China to show leadership and to engage with us to reform and to update the system, to create a level playing field [or] otherwise the US will create a level playing field outside the system,” Malmstrom said in a conference on “A WTO for the 21st Century” in Paris.

The WTO oversaw international trade since 1995, allowing its members to challenge each others’ trade practices, while obliging member states to be transparent about their policies and to keep tariffs and subsidies within agreed levels.

However, the WTO failed to reflect the economic rise of China, causing a row with the US which accuses China of providing state companies with illicit subsidies and stealing technology.

While Chinese senior diplomat Wang Yi said that Beijing backs reforms to the WTO, US President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw from the WTO, should not it “shape up.”

Washington also blocked judicial appointments at the WTO, which could paralyse the system of trade dispute settlement and more broadly the WTO.

“One false step here could quickly lead to collapse of the whole rules-based system,” Malmstrom said.

Such issues cannot be resolved within the organization, but it requires political momentum by the Group of Seven (G7) and G20.

The European Union put forward a WTO reform proposal and plans to take it to the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Malmstrom said.