Is WTO Just “A Scrap of Paper”?
Opponents of Chinese WTO accession assert that China seldom abides by its international agreements. Hence, they assert, there is no reason to expect China to honor WTO commitments in the future. Is this a fair criticism? China’s inclusion in this process would mean little if any net increase in US clothing imports but simply smaller shares of the US market for other exporting nations. A team of scholars at the Georgetown University Law Center have compiled a record of China’s compliance with its recent obligations.9 Excerpts from their scorecard (table 4) suggest that China’s record, though mixed, is better than the detractors think. This list grades compliance as either good, fair or poor. According to this scorecard, China’s compliance record is a mixed bag—like that of many emerging countries. China does not have an exemplary record, but it is wrong to say that China is a consistent cheater on international sovereign commitments. For example, as the USTR notes in the 1999 Trade Barr
