Focus: China's WTO Anniversary
Thoughts on the Occasion of China's Fifth Anniversary of WTO Accession
Clark T. Randt, Jr., United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China
No country in recent history has benefited more from World Trade Organization (WTO) membership than has China, and no country has greater potential to strengthen the WTO than does China. Approaching the fifth anniversary of its accession to the WTO, China has become the world's third-largest trading nation and established itself as a major force on the global economic scene. As a result, millions of China's people have been lifted from poverty as its economy has grown at nearly 10 percent per year.
The United States has derived substantial benefits from China's greater participation in the global economy. The United States and China together have accounted for almost half of global economic growth over the past four years. China is currently the United States' third-largest trading partner, and it will soon become the United States' third-largest export market.
When it acceded to the WTO in December 2001, China committed to make substantial structural reforms to its economy. It agreed to undertake systemic rule of law reforms to introduce transparency, predictability, and fundamental fairness into business transactions. During its first five years of WTO membership, China has phased in the vast majority of its commitments. This is a significant accomplishment for which China justly deserves the world's praise.
China's work in honoring its WTO commitments, while laudable, remains unfinished. China needs to do more to honor its WTO obligations to protect intellectual property rights domestically and to move forcefully to eliminate market access barriers to foreign goods and services. As China's WTO accession transition period nears an end and China has earned a position among the ranks of global trading powers, it can no longer remain a passive bystander. Instead, China should actively seek out opportunities to break down international trade barriers and become a more active, creative, and constructive participant in multilateral trade-liberalizing negotiations, such as the Doha Round.
We in the United States government congratulate China for seizing the opportunity of WTO accession to put in place a framework of laws that, if consistently enforced, will keep China among the ranks of the world's great economies. The United States government looks forward to continued cooperation with China to further strengthen an open and fair global trading system.
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