考研阅读精选：中国入世十年回想当年

　Ten years of China in the WTO

Shades of grey

It was right to let China in. Now the world’s biggesttrader needs to grow up

Dec 10th 2011 | from the print edition

CHINA’S efforts to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dragged on for15 years, long enough to “turn black hair white”, as Zhu Rongji, China’s former prime minister, put it. (His own hair remainedPolitburo-black throughout.) Even after membership was granted, ten years agothis week, Mr Zhu expected many “headaches”, including the loss of customs duties and the distress of farmersexposed to foreign competition.

Yet the bet paid off for China. It has blossomed into the world’s greatestexporter and second-biggest importer. The marriage of foreign know-how, Chineselabour and the open, global market has succeeded beyond anyone’spredictions.

It is instead China’s trading partners who now contemplate its WTO membership withfurrowed brows (see article). They have a variety of complaints: that Chinaexports too much, swamping their markets with cheap manufactured goods,subsidised by an undervalued currency; that it hoards essential inputs, such asrare earths, for its own firms; and that it still skews its own market againstforeign companies, in some cases by being slow to implement WTO rules (notablyon piracy), in others by suddenly imposing unwritten rules that areunfavourable or unknowable to foreigners. The meddling state letsmultinationals in, only to squeeze them dry of their valuable technologies andthen push them out.

Much of this criticism is right. China made heroic reforms in theyears around its WTO entry. That raised expectations that it has conspicuouslyfailed to meet. It signed up for multilateral rules, but neglected the rule oflaw at home. Free trade did not bring wider freedoms, and even the trade wasnot exactly free. It is in China’s interest to liberalise its exchange rate further, to prevent localofficials from discriminating against foreigners and above all to do far moreto support the global trading system. The WTO is undermined when any memberflouts the rules, never mind one as big as China.

Too big to be a bystander—or to be kept out

But China’s sins should be put into perspective. In terms of global tradeconsumers everywhere have gained from cheap Chinese goods. Chinese growth hascreated a huge market for other countries’ exports. And China’s remainingbarriers are often exaggerated. It is more open to imports than Japan was atthe same stage of development, more open to foreign direct investment thanSouth Korea was until the 1990s. Its tariffs are capped at 10% on average;Brazil’s at over 30%. And in China, unlike India, you can shop at Walmart,most of the time.

As for the hurdles foreign firms face in China, they aredisgraceful—but sadly no worse than in other developing countries. The grumblesare louder in China chiefly because the stakes are higher. Foreigners may havewon a smaller slice of China’s market than they had hoped, but China is a bigger pie than anyonedared to expect. Had China been kept out of the WTO, there would have been lessgrowth for everybody. And the WTO still provides the best means to disciplineand cajole. Rather than delivering congressional ultimatums, America and otherscould make more use of the WTO’s rules to curb China’s worst infractions.

So celebrate China’s ten years in the WTO: we are all richer because of it. But, whenit comes to trade, China’s rulers now badly need to grow up. Their cheating is harming theirown consumers and stoking up protectionism abroad. That could prove to beeconomic self-harm on an epic scale.