A new report – released on the same day the Obama administration launched an official complaint against China at the WTO – reveals that China is among the countries harmed most often by protectionist measures of its G20 peers.

According to the latest Global Trade Alert Report, released Wednesday, China’s commercial interests have been harmed 484 times between January 2015 and April 2016 – through import tariff increases, subsidies awarded by foreign governments to their home industries, localization requirements and other discriminatory measures. 

This implies “a 20% expansion in the number of hits to China’s exporters, investors, and workers over this relatively short (16 month) period,” note the report’s authors Simon Evenett and Johannes Fritz of the London based Centre for Economic Policy Research.  “Our records literally imply that China’s commercial interests have been harmed on a daily basis.” The number compares to roughly 300 new policies that negatively impact larger member states of the European Union and Japan.

The United States ranks first in the list of nations that discriminate most often against foreign commercial interests, implementing a total of 90 harmful measures in 2015. China did not feature in the top 10 last year, but is the ninth-most protective member of the G20 in the eight year period from 2008 until now.

Based on figures from the Dutch Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis, the report highlights that world trade has plateaued since January 2015, as export volumes in both advanced and emerging economies have stayed level. At the same time, protectionist measures are up 50% in 2015 vis-à-vis 2014. In the first four months of 2016, more than 150 new trade barriers have been implemented. Despite their self-proclaimed stand-still on protectionism, G20 members were responsible for 81% of them.