China has suspended a dispute consultation case related to its market economy status at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which shows China is striving to ease friction with other countries due to the tense international trading situation and the challenges the WTO is facing from certain countries' unilateralism and protectionism, experts said.

The Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO received a request from China to suspend the panel's work in one of China's dispute cases with the EU and the request was granted on Friday, according to a statement from the WTO.

Sang Baichuan, director of the Institute of International Business at the University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times on Tuesday that China has been trying to make efforts to ease the friction with other countries amid a sluggish world economy and the tense trade situation.

China has been actively upholding the multilateral system of free trade, while the US keeps reheating protectionism by threatening other counties with unreasonably high tariffs, Sang noted.

Only a sound and fair mechanism can settle disputes on a reasonable basis, Sang said, noting that the WTO is now nearly malfunctioning and needs to be reformed.

In December 2016, China requested a dispute consultation with the EU concerning certain provisions of the EU regulation pertaining to the determination of normal value for "non-market economy" countries in anti-dumping proceedings involving products from China, according to the WTO.

China has said it should be recognized as a market economy after 15 years of WTO membership in accordance with the terms of its accession. China has said using market economy status in anti-dumping proceedings is untenable, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency in 2018, which cited Wang Shouwen, China's vice minister of commerce.