ABSTRACT
In November 2001, China finally signed a Protocol of Accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This event tied together the long process of economic and legal reform in China with China’s formal engagement with the international legal system regulating world trade. Australia and China had both contributed to shaping of the global trade system in bringing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in existence in 1948. However, since Taiwan withdrew from the GATT in 1950, China had been outside the system and its trading relationships including that with Australia had been conducted outside of the international system. That situation has ended and the trading relationship between China and Australia is now firmly set in the context of the WTO legal rules.
