Chinas Entry Into World Trade Organization And Its Benefits For U.S. Industries

Abstract

The November 15th agreement imposes much more substantial concessions on China than on the U.S., which merely grants permanently what it has long granted annually. Chinas Concessions are the price of U.S. support for Chinese membership. Both these concessions and the WTO rules themselves should have profound impact on China, considerably opening its economy to foreign competition. WTO membership ought to compel China to change its current commercial laws and practices to conform to WTO rules. Once it is a WTO membership, China would need to negotiate trading terms on a multilateral basis with all members at once. Chinas concessions will benefit many major industries; among those likely to gain most are farmers, financial companies and high-tech industries. U.S. law and accounting firms are also granted expanded access under the agreement. It is widely assumed that large American corporations stand to benefit significantly from the liberalization measures that China has proposed as part of its accession to the WTO. The purpose of this research is to investigate Chinas entry into WTO and its benefits for U.S. industries.