Introduction

China's accession to the WTO has engaged considerable attention in trade and legal circles. Speculation has arisen concerning the potential benefits of membership to China and to her trading partners, and whether admitting China to the WTO will weaken the framework of what is, by many accounts, a most successful international organization. This chapter examines the theory and practice of implementing international treaties in China with a view to shedding light on the prospect of enforcing WTO agreements in China.

Since China adopted the open door policy in the late 1970s, it has participated in high-level trade negotiation and entered numerous trade and economic agreements, both at the bilateral and multilateral level. China's size and economic leverage in combination with MFN provisions of bilateral agreements have secured it the same trade treatment vis-à-vis the WTO as other Member States. At the multilateral level, despite its lack of membership of the WTO China has acceded to or participated in the making of multilateral trade treaties, the most significant of which was the Multi-Fibre Arrangement. As an observer, China was a participant in the Uruguay Round and initialled the final results of the negotiation.

Despite these trade advantages China has long desired entry into the WTO, and in July 1986 officially applied to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO's predecessor, to resume its status as an original Contracting Party.