Mexico recently complained to the World Trade Organization against China's subsidies to textile manufacturers. China's Ministry of Commerce said that the dispute will be solved properly within the WTO's framework.

It's predictable that trade protectionism will emerge in a global crisis. But protectionism also hinders the recovery of the world economy.

The eurozone sovereign debt crisis and the United States' slow economic recovery mean that their contributions to China's trade have become quite limited.

Meanwhile, emerging economies are also facing high inflation pressure and a remarkable decline of economic growth. More importantly, they share similar strengths with each other and tend to compete in many fields. So some of them resort to protectionism, which results in trade conflicts and disputes.

In fact, the decline of the emerging markets' economic growth speed is predictable, because their weak domestic demand and industrial structures cannot make up for the losses in the dwindling trade with Europe and the US.

So emerging markets tend to protect their national industries to cushion the impact from the declining economic growth and try their best to win a more favorable position in the competition with foreign countries in their niche markets.

China was the target of trade complaints more than 40 times in the first half of the year, up 38 percent year-on-year. More than 30 cases were initiated by emerging economies, such as Brazil, Argentina, Thailand and India.

After demand from the West weakened, China relies increasingly on trade with developing countries. So if the trade tensions between China and developing countries further escalate, China will not have enough potential markets to promote trade growth.

Since many developing countries do not have mature and transparent dispute settlement mechanisms, or even legal systems as sophisticated as their developed counterparts, trade disputes among developing nations are more likely to sour and end up in serious trade conflicts. The lack of effective communication among them aggravates the likelihood of that happening.

The increasingly complicated international trade protectionism actions among developing countries just increase the uncertainties for the global economic recovery and the risks of another round of global recession.

Translated by Li Yang from 21st Century Business Herald