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Contenu du sommaire : China's WTO Decade

Revue China perspectives Mir@bel
Numéro no 2012/1
Titre du numéro China's WTO Decade
Texte intégral en ligne Accessible sur l'internet
  • Recollection: Élisabeth Allès (1952-2012) - Sebastian Veg p. 2 accès libre
  • Class Struggles in China Today: Towards a Third Chinese Revolution? - Élisabeth Allès p. 3-4 accès libre avec résumé en anglais
    The passing of Elisabeth Allès, on 1 January 2012, came as a shock to many people, well beyond academia. Despite her grave illness, she had decided to attend a public workshop organized at the French National Library by the EHESS on 7 December 2011, devoted to « Revolutions today ». As a specialist of Islam, she had closely followed the recent changes in the Muslim world. An anthropologist attuned to the field, she always distinguished between the rigour of academic work and the choices of political commitment, but she was also able, when the opportunity arose, to associate the two, with the soft-spoken firmness that made up her character. The following essay represents her last public appearance and is published here as a tribute to her academic contribution and intellectual courage. (Joël Thoraval)

  • Special feature: China's WTO Decade

    • Éditorial - Leïla Choukroune p. 5-7 accès libre
    • The Compromised “Rule of Law by Internationalisation” - Leïla Choukroune p. 9-14 accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      Upon accession to the WTO, China committed to a series of specific obligations often referred to as “WTO+,” aimed at the progressive transformation of the Chinese legal landscape. While one cannot ignore a number of very significant achievements as well as a true political responsiveness to other WTO members' concerns, China has not been willing to grasp the WTO opportunity for domestic legal reforms as much as observers, and some Chinese leaders, had hoped for. This incomplete normative revolution now creates tensions between WTO members, as evidenced by an increasing number of disputes shedding a direct light on the lack of transparency in the Chinese legal system. Ten years later, this piece reflects upon predictions about Chinese “rule of law by internationalisation,” while putting China's legal reform into a broader political perspective.
    • Transparency and National Treatment under the Chinese Flag - Hubert Bazin p. 15-22 accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      Since 2001, China has, overall, respected the commitments it made when it joined the WTO. However, no “WTO spirit” has been observed that might have led it to go beyond the letter of these commitments, and very many non-tariff barriers are still in place. In view of the modernisation of its legal framework, is there room for improvements that would enable foreign companies to find their place more easily in a rapidly expanding market, or do structural obstacles stand in the way of the developments hoped for by its main partners?
    • The Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property in China since Accession to the WTO: Progress and Retreat - Bryan Mercurio p. 23-28 accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      China is without a doubt the world's leading infringer of intellectual property rights (IPRs). China's factories produce counterfeit and pirated products for local and foreign consumption while China's domestic industry infringes patent rights with relative impunity – this despite nearly 30 years of improving laws for the protection and enforcement of IPRs as well as accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. This brief article seeks to understand the reasons behind China's apparent failure to adequately enforce its IPRs. Finding local protectionism a major impediment to enforcement efforts, the article further analyses whether the central government has the power to enforce IPRs or whether it is powerless to confront and challenge local interests.
    • Marching In: China's Cultural Trade in Official and Press Discourse - Rogier Creemers p. 29-37 accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      This essay analyses the official and media response to the WTO cases related to cultural products, which China lost. It aims to contextualize both the official discourse and the press discourse in terms of domestic politics and China's trade priorities. It concludes that in the official discourse, China and the US are working at cross purposes, as they have fundamentally divergent concepts of trade in cultural products. The newspaper discourse is more moderate and emphasises developmental and commercial issues, but is also subject to the priorities of Chinese politics.
    • Food Safety in China: Implicationsof Accession to the WTO - Denise Prévost p. 39-47 accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      The interaction between trade and health objectives has assumed critical importance for China since its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The wish to improve its access to foreign markets has had a visible impact on China's food safety policy, providing significant impetus for far-reaching reforms. The WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), to which China is now bound as a WTO Member, sets out a “best practices” regulatory model with which national food safety regulation must comply. The disciplines it entails on regulatory autonomy in the area of food safety may present considerable challenges for China but have the potential to promote rationality in such regulation and to prevent food safety regulations that are based on unfounded fears or are a response to protectionist pressures from the domestic food industry. Faced with the possibility of challenges by other WTO Members to its food safety measures on the grounds of non-compliance with WTO rules, China has a strong incentive to improve conformity with this regulatory model, bringing benefits not only to exporters but most importantly to its citizens.
    • China and the WTO Dispute Settlement System - Leïla Choukroune p. 49-57 accès libre avec résumé en anglais
      Since its accession to the WTO on 11 December 2001, China has been involved in eight cases as complainant, 23 as respondent, and 89 as a third party. Against all pre-entry predictions, the China-related cases have not overburdened the WTO dispute settlement system, as if all parties were implicitly respecting a latent period before engaging in commercial hostilities. Often portrayed as a “passive rule taker” in the immediate aftermath of its accession, China was not only learning by attentively watching other members' strategies, but also benefiting from the benevolent attitude of its main trading partners, the US and the EU. Moreover, its participation in 89 WTO disputes as third party is not a trivial detail nor is it a sign of passivity, but rather one of cautious preparation that corresponded to the time needed to properly apprehend its new legal tools and all rights thereunder.While there are many ways of approaching such an already vast body of decisions and related legal and economic literature, this article tries to reflect the uniqueness of the Chinese trade regime and the impact of such a peculiar mix between economic libreralisation and maintenance of the state on other WTO Members in addressing the following questions: the transitional product-specific safeguard measures adopted in reaction to a market disruption caused by Chinese imports, the antidumping and countervailing duties issue, and the restrictions on exportations or importations imposed by China for economic, but also societal and political reasons.
    • China's Participation in WTO Negotiations - Henry Gao p. 59-65 accès libre

  • Current Affairs

    • China Analysis
      • Chinese firms “going out”: An economic dynamic with political significance - Thomas Vendryes p. 67-68 avec résumé en anglais
        Based on:- Special issue of Contemporary International Relations (现代国际关系, xiandai guoji guanxi, 2011, no. 8) following a meeting organised by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (中国现代国际关系研究院, zhongguo xiandai guoji guanxi yanjiu yuan) on 9 August 2011 on the theme “Reviewing ten years of China's ‘going out' strategy: Successes and challenges,” containing the following articles:- Article 1: “From an active and progressive ‘going out' strategy to its speedier implementation,” Tao Jian, professor and director, University of International Relations.- Article 2: “Reviewing ten years of China's ‘going out' strategy: successes and challenges,” Jin Canrong, professor and vice-director, Faculty of International Relations, Renmin University.- Article 3: “Why are the political risks of China's direct investments abroad so high?,” Mei Xinyu, researcher, Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.- Article 4: “Some salient problems linked to China's ‘going out' strategy,” Jiang Yong, researcher, economics department, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.- Article 5: “International political economic analysis of China's ‘going out' strategy,” Lin Hongyu, professor and director, Department of International Politics, University of International Relations.- Article 6: “Promoting the renminbi's internationalisation through an autonomous strategy,” Zhao Qingming, PhD, deputy senior manager at the head office, China Construction Bank.- Article 7: “The 3L growth method for Chinese multinationals,” Fan Libo, professor and director, research centre on international companies, International and Business Economics University.- Article 8: “Hong Kong's role and functions in the new phase of China's ‘going out' strategy,” Zhang Yuncheng, researcher and director, Centre for Hong Kong and Macao-related Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.- Article 9: “Enterprises ‘going out' and public diplomacy,” Li Yonghui, professor and dean of the School of International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University.
      • The land issue: Power struggles between the central government and local authorities - Marie-Hélène Schwoob p. 66-67 avec résumé en anglais
        Based on:- Zhang Qianfang, “Uncertain conservation of cultivable land in China,” Changcheng Yuebao, 11 June 2011.- Mao Yushi, “Key to problem of cultivable land in China lies in rational and equitable use,” Shidai zhoubao, 3 November 2011.

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