ABSTRACT
After almost six years of “silence” following Tianamen Square in 1989, China and the member countries of the World Trade Organization resumed seriously negotiating its entry into the WTO (formerly the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT).1 The negotiations, particularly the critical bilateral market access negotiations, occurred primarily with the major Western economies, namely the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). Following the resumption of serious negotiations in 1995, it was apparent that China was significantly different from the applicant of earlier negotiating years. China had grown enormously, its economic influence had spread globally and, despite a slight decline in growth following the soon to strike Asia crisis, China was more economically powerful and more globally involved than it had ever been since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). During this same period, a new set of emerging economies had grown quickly as well, notably Malaysia, Thailand and even Vietnam, but it was China that represented the spectre of an economic and political superpower unequaled in the developing world. Indeed, it is the size of China’s population, its economy today and its potential tomorrow that attract such critical attention in both popular discourse and academic fields of study. This economic size and potential for growth underlines the uniqueness and dramatic importance of China’s admission to the WTO.
