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Qingjiang, Kong --- "China in the WTO: Enforcement of the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Agenda" [2011] ELECD 850; in Kariyawasam, Rohan (ed), "Chinese Intellectual Property and Technology Laws" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Chinese Intellectual Property and Technology Laws

Editor(s): Kariyawasam, Rohan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800082

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: China in the WTO: Enforcement of the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Agenda

Author(s): Qingjiang, Kong

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

13. China in the WTO: enforcement
of the TRIPS Agreement and the
Doha Agenda
Kong Qingjiang1

China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 11
December 2001 was an historic event. For the rest of the world, admitting
China into the world trading system was a great experiment. Indeed, as
the most populated country, China's rapidly expanding economy reflected
its significant role in decision-making concerning the world's resource
allocation. There was no certainty at the time of accession that China's
economic system would mesh well with WTO rules and other trading part-
ners' market-oriented economies. Moreover, in the history of the world
trading system, never had a country of such trading importance, and with
a system that had been identified to be incompatible with WTO norms,
been admitted.
It is no exaggeration that, at the time of the accession, given China's
trade weight, its anticipated gigantic trade surge would disrupt the
markets of its trading partners, and the rule-based multilateral trading
system would be endangered if China opted to ignore WTO rules. With
this apprehension in mind, even before admitting China into the world
trading system, the leading trading partners, particularly the United
States and the European Union (EU), had successfully forced China to
accept a more comprehensive protocol on the accession, one in which
China committed itself to ever more far-reaching obligations beyond the
WTO. Moreover, China's leading trading partners kept a close watch on
China's behavior ...