One of the most important aspects of China's WTO membership is that it brings more rules of law to China. Over the past year, the Chinese government has put effort into adjusting the domestic legal framework to WTO rules.
This is a 2002 report assessing China's WTO implementation released by the American Chamber of Commerce, an avid China watcher since it joined the WTO. The report devotes a good portion to legal and regulatory implementation.
Christian Murck, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, says, "Clearly the Chinese government has made a very great effort, literally thousands of laws and regulations have been revised making them consistent with the WTO concepts and practices. This is a demonstration that the Chinese government is very serious about this aspect of their commitment."
Chris Murck is referring to the revisions covered in these three volumes of statutes. They embody the brainchild of some of China's best minds for well over a year. At the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council （LAOSC）, Deputy Division Chief of the LAOSC Li Fuying offers an insider's account of these sweeping revisions.
He says, "All these revisions have been carried out in an orderly manner. Actually the process started in 1999, when China and the US reached WTO accession agreement. We made detailed plan for making, revising or repealing trade－related laws and regulations."
According to Li Fuying, centering around the principles of "transparency" and "fairness", the National People's Congress has to date enacted or revised 14 relevant laws covering a variety of themes from foreign invested enterprises to intellectual property rights. The State Council together with its various ministries have formulated, revised or repealed well over 1,000 administrative regulations.
The Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, or MOFTEC, is at the forefront of this unprecedented campaign of legal revision.
Zhang Yuqing, director of the Department of Treaty and Law, MOFTEC, says, "It has been the first time we have seriously examined all the existing trade－related rules and regulations. A considerable number of them have been repealed or revised. It also took quite some effort to persuade the relevant departments to adopt the new rules, as traditions formed over the years are hard to change overnight."
The new measures have been applauded by foreign investors in China. According to Chris Murck, investors are concerned with the protection of property and contract rights and the protection of intellectual property rights. China has made quite striking progress in alleviating their fears, and foreign investors are now looking forward to better administration of the new rules.
Shao Jingchun, director of the WTO Law Study Center of Peking University, says, "Given the rather weak legal basis in China, enforcing these rules still requires better coordination among the various government departments. The good thing is that the central government is well aware of this and is working to minimize the negative impact on the legal implementation. "
Most of the WTO programs will be phased in over a five－year transition period. The first year has already seen many achievements made in the legal regime. In the four years ahead, more important changes are expected to occur. Their significance goes beyond the realm of the trade to affect the average citizen, when such terms as "transparency" and "fairness" will become part of their everyday vocabulary.
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