China and the WTO into the Next Decade: Probing the Past and Present as a Path to Understand the Future

Abstract

AbstractThis article surveys the literature on China and the World Trade Organization (WTO) and provides background information on China and the WTO. It also identifies some future research directions for those studying China and the WTO. Other important purposes are to summarise the articles in this special issue and to highlight some of the answers they offer to a variety of question. As useful as it is, the extant literature has various deficiencies. First, it is narrowly focused, emphasising topics such as China’s WTO accession, rather than China’s compliance and participation record. Second, a large proportion is becoming dated. Third, it is largely descriptive. The contributions to this special issue address some of these problems by supplying us with contemporary information about a number of WTO topics, such as China’s fulfilment of its WTO obligations in regards to trading and distribution rights, and the evolution of its intellectual property rights protection regime. They make a significant conceptual contribution by showing that a cost/benefit framework can illuminate a wide variety of China-WTO-related phenomenon ranging from China’s acceptance of highly demanding WTO accession terms to China’s interactions with Taiwan prior to and after the two party’s respective entry into the WTO.