HANDBOOK ON CHINA'S WTO ACCESSION AND ITS IMPACTS
by Ching Cheong & Ching Hung-Yee
It has taken China 15 long years of tough negotiations to achieve accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). By becoming a full member of the WTO, China has in fact made three tiers of commitments. The first tier is the commitment to the objectives of the WTO, such as free trade, most-favoured nations, national treatment and transparency, as expounded in the various documents setting up the organization and its predecessor, the GATT. The second tier is the commitment to the set of rules governing trade for specific sectors, such as agricultural and textile goods, or information technology and telecommunications. This is set out in China's accession protocol. The third tier is the commitment to bilateral agreements which China signed with her major trading partners. Their support is mandatory before China can be admitted to the WTO and therefore she has to satisfy each of them through elaborate bilateral negotiations. This handbook highlights the important commitments that China has made to the international community and analyzes the potential impact of such commitments on China.
Part I of the book outlines China's commitments to convert her economy from a centrally planned one to a free market one as far as cross-border movement of goods, services and personnel is concerned. It reproduces China's commitments in a tabular format to facilitate reading, and is supplemented with brief references to WTO regulations where appropriate so that readers get to know how China's commitments relate to WTO obligations. Part II examines the impacts of China's WTO membership as a whole and on her specific economic sectors. Part III consists of Tables and Figures selected from a Report compiled by the US General Accounting Office, presenting some of the Office's analysis and findings of China's commitments on WTO accession.
Appendix 1 lists all the legal instruments pertaining to China's accession to the WTO. Appendix 2 reprints the Protocol of China's Accession. China's schedule of commitments on services, rearranged in a format more comprehensible to the general reader, is included as Appendix 3, so that concerned readers can find out for themselves how their professions may be affected. Appendix 4 reprints the GATS Services Sectoral Classification GNS/W/120 and part of the CPC Provisional version. This appendix is attached to facilitate readers to check whether their specific professions, which are spelt out in 3–6 digit codes, are included in Chinese commitments.
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