Doing Business with China

WTO accession provides a legally binding roadmap to the further liberalization and modernization of the Chinese economy

The importance of China's WTO accession is that it provides a legally binding roadmap to the further liberalization and modernization of the Chinese economy over the next 15 years . This should not be interpreted as submission to an external power. On the contrary, China's WTO membership and the terms thereof are simply the next logical phase in a process of internal economic reform that was launched more than 20 years ago. People very close to the negotiations have pointed out that all the changes that China has agreed to make in the framework of its WTO accession are changes that China wanted to make and would have been made in any event in the foreseeable future. Thus WTO accession is a useful tool to keep the internal reform agenda on target rather than an externally imposed obligation. There will certainly be short-term conflicts about specific issues, and companies affected by these short-term conflicts may find that they need to work hard to minimize damage and ensure correct implementation of China's WTO obligations. In the long term , however, there should be no doubt that China is committed to fulfilling its WTO obligations, if only because these reflect China's own policy choices.