Enter the Dragon : An Essay on China's WTO Accession Saga

How did a country join the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade(“GATT”)? How does a country become a member of the World Trade Organization (“WTO”)?GATT Articles XXXII-XXXIII and WTO Agreement Articles XI-XII provide the answers. To examine these provisions in the context of China’s bid to join or re-join, is entertaining and instructive. The story itself is an epic saga, and no country currently seeking WTO membership - Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia, for example - could possibly raise a more complex array of issues than the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”). Neither the principles nor policies, theories nor doctrines, laws nor regulations in the domain of international trade are irrelevant to the PRC epic.In addition to addressing these questions, this article critically examines the commitments of the PRC to join the WTO, and the reactions to them, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. Those commitments were, indeed, breathtaking, and the reactions to them were telling, with lessons for the future of the WTO