Mark Wu, The WTO and China’s Unique Economic Structure, in Regulating the Visible Hand? The Institutional Implications of Chinese State Capitalism (Benjamin L. Liebman & Curtis J. Milhaupt eds., 2016).
Abstract: "This chapter examines the challenges posed by the rise of China’s state capitalism to the multilateral trade regime. At the heart of the challenge is the fact that China’s economic structure is unique and has evolved in a manner largely unforeseen by those negotiating China’s accession to the WTO. This chapter discusses how WTO rules contemplate a variety of alternative economic structures besides market capitalism. It examines why, at the time of China’s WTO accession, these rules were considered sufficient for addressing the Chinese economy. Subsequent developments in China’s economic structure are generating a series of emergent tensions for the interpretation of WTO law as applied to the Chinese context. This chapter explores these tensions as well as a series of broader questions concerning the relationship between Chinese state capitalism and global trade governance. It suggests that China’s rise may well contribute to the growing fragmentation of the trade regime." --Publisher