ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes China's compliance with its WTO commitments to open its banking sector to foreign competition. While WTO research has concentrated largely on compliance with judicial rulings of its adjudicating bodies, less attention has been directed at members' compliance with their WTO obligations, which is the focus here. Moreover, this project aims at sketching a broad picture of compliance rather than focusing on specific instances of alleged noncompliance. The concept of compliance is based on a notion of “acceptable” or “reasonable” compliance—when a state complies with most of its treaty obligations (Jackson 1969: 163; Chayes and Chayes 1995: 17–22; Chayes et al. 1998: 40). Because China's banking sector is one of the least liberalized in the economy, WTO banking compliance can be considered a critical case with important implications for assessing China's overall WTO compliance. If China is found to be complying with its banking commitments, it can be surmised that China is generally complying with WTO rules.
