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The WTO at the Crossroads: How to Avoid the China Syndrome?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2022

Petros C. Mavroidis  and
André Sapir
Petros C. Mavroidis
Affiliation:
Columbia University School of Law, New York, NY, USA
André Sapir*
Affiliation:
Economics, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
*
*Corresponding author. Email: pmavro@law.columbia.edu
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Abstract

The commonplace narrative regarding China's participation in the WTO is that the original expectations have not been matched in subsequent experience. China has not behaved in accordance with the spirit (and sometimes the letter) of its commitments. Reactions by trading partners have been from critical to hostile, and some have even called for a WTO without China, ignoring the boost to international trade that China's accession has provoked. Yet, China's participation in the WTO cannot remain un-addressed. The US almost brought the WTO to its knees largely because of China, and the EU has enacted laws to counteract China's trade expansion. In this short paper, we argue that the solution to the China-issue passes through an addition and re-invigoration of the multilateral trade rules.

Keywords

ChinaSOEstransfer of technology

JEL classification

K40: General
Type
Original Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 21 , Special Issue 3: WTO at a Crossroads: The WTR 20th Anniversary Issue , July 2022 , pp. 359 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

†

CLS, and ECARE (ULB), respectively. For helpful discussions, we are indebted to Claus-Dieter Ehlermann, Gary Hufbauer, Kirtikumar Mehta, and Doug Nelson.

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