By Jose Bove -恩汐选注

　　联合国法律事务处资深法律顾问、中国WTO工作组秘书杰夫瑞·盖特勒曾经说：“从来没有一个国家加入世贸的过程像中国这样独特，其间的曲折可以写成一本书。”……今天，中国终于超越了种种困难，跨上了成功的阶梯。

　　World trade ministers admitted China to their global club on 10 November 2001, finally opening a potential market of 1.3 billion people. China's membership was unanimously ratified by the 142-nation WTO at a meeting in the emirate of Qatar.<注1>The vote makes the country of 1.3 billion consumers the WTO's largest member and provides a boost to thesgroupsas it struggles to expand trade. "The accession of Chinasintosthe WTO puts the 'world'sintosthe World Trade Organization," said French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius.

　　The move gives foreign companies, from banks to movie studios, a wider opening in the world's most populous market. Even companies from Tyson Foods of the United States, the world's biggest chicken processor, to Allianz AG, Europe's second-largest insurer, are among those likely to see business expand as China fulfils pledges to tear down trade and investment barriers.<注2>

　　China's participation in the WTO was assured in September, when the US and European Union set aside differences over American International Group's access to the insurance market and Mexico agreed to limit punitive tariffs on Chinese goods.<注3>

　　For China, stronger competition from foreign companies threatens to force unprofitable companies out of business and cost thousands of jobs, a difficulty acknowledged in Doha by Chinese Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng. "This will inevitably exert a widespread and far-reaching impact on China's economy and on the world economy in the new century," Shi said.

　　China ended a quest that began in 1986 to have its market of 1.3 billion people opened to the world trading system with unanimous approval by the more than 140 nations gathered in a pyramid-shaped meeting center facing Qatar's glittering seas. "After 15 years of difficult negotiations, we finally came to this historical moment," China's Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng said.

　　The United States, which for years stalled Beijing's membership by linking it to improvement in its human rights record before relenting in 1999,<注4> immediately welcomed China's entry as a move that would strengthen the WTO and boost China's development.

　　"I believe that as this century unfolds and people look back on this day, they will conclude that in admitting China to the WTO we took a decisive step in shaping a global economic and commercial system," US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said.

　　Chinese officials dismissed fears that it would fail to comply. "China's market is open to the outside. As long as the market is open to the outside, the more economic growth we have and the better for the world," Beijing's top trade negotiator Long Yongtu told reporters.

　　The workingsgroupsmade up of the WTO's 142 members, which has been discussing China's accession for the past 15 years, approved the agreement based on which China will liberalize its trade regime and open its doors to foreign investment. China's admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) will have a major impact on international trade and on the political balance within the multilateral institution.

　　WTO authorities and trade negotiators said the significance of the decision was enormous. WTO Director Mike Moore said it was a defining moment in the history of the organization and the multilateral trade system. With the membership of a country that accounts for one quarter of the world's population, "the WTO will take a major step toward becoming a truly world organization", said Moore.

　　China's Deputy Minister of Trade Long Yongtu described China's incorporation as a "win-win" situation.<注5> "The great potential of China's market will be gradually translatedsintospurchasing power, so as to provide a huge open market to all countries and regions in the world," said Long.

　　Having China in the WTO and subject to<注6> the same rules governing the rest of the world's countries will have a positive effect on the global economy, agreed Federico Cuello, a negotiator from the Dominican Republic.<注7> China's admission must be analyzed in the light of the difficult situation facing the world economy today, marked by a dramatic slowdown in the United States and Europe and recession in Japan, he pointed out.

　　The WTO secretariat was also confident that the new member would revitalize an organization that has been weakened by discrepancies among its members regarding the real benefits of the freeing up of trade.<注8> Moore was pleased that China's admission would enable the WTO to play "a pivotal role in global economic cooperation".

　　In the view of developing countries, China could become an important force in achieving more equitable results in the future, said Uruguayan<注9> representative Carlos Perez del Castillo. China's presence would help to correct the "asymmetries"<注10> seen in WTO accords, and help to pursue objectives that have long been postponed in areas that are vital to poor countries, like agriculture and textiles, said Perez del Castillo.

　　The Chinese delegation said China's adherence to the institution that regulates the liberalization of trade and the world's economies was "in line with China's reform and opening-up policy and the goal of establishing a socialist market economic system". Evidently there is no doubt that China's presence, political clout<注11> and market size will have an impact when it comes to achieving specific objectives, as the Uruguayan negotiator said, who welcomed the incorporation of the giant new member.