China lodged an appeal on Tuesday over a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel ruling which said its regulations on the import and distribution of books and audio-visual products are not in compliance with world trade rules.

The WTO’s seven-member Appellate Body will now have two to three months to reinvestigate the U.S.-China dispute, and it can uphold, modify or reverse the panel ruling, which was issued last month, the Chinese mission to the world trade body said. (Xinhua)

If nothing else, filing an appeal will buy Beijing some time before they have to do some restructuring to their import and distribution regime.

No secret here if you’ve read my other posts on this case (Part I, Part II) — I think on the main portion of the dispute, China had a very tough position to defend.

In effect, they had to argue that they needed to restrict foreign enterprises from importing and distributing certain entertainment products, including music and movies, because of censorship concerns. The obvious rejoinder to that, “But censorship and importation/distribution are completely separate things,” went essentially unchallenged by China.

I have no idea what the appeal entails. Again, they will certainly buy themselves some time, and an appeal always looks good to the home crowd (“We’re vigorously protecting your interests”), but I doubt that aside from some technical victories, a major win will be forthcoming.

Stay tuned.