Chinese cadres and intellectuals have expressed optimism the WTO deal will anchor the nation solidly towards economic, and eventually, political reform.
Last night, moderate officials and scholars compared the trade breakthrough to events in Sino-US intercourse such as Washington's recognition of China in 1979.
But they warned that, at least in the short term, the administration of President Jiang Zemin would take steps to ensure that market reforms would not spawn a new tide of 'bourgeois liberalisation'.
Moreover, the nation's influential conservative faction has remained opposed to the WTO, as well as liberalisation in other fields.
'After WTO, it will be that much more difficult for any leader to roll back the reforms begun by Deng Xiaoping,' said a member of an official think-tank in Beijing.
'Apart from market integration, the influx of foreign products, management concepts and culture will have a liberalising impact on politics and society.' A party source said yesterday the Politburo would, at least in the foreseeable future, take steps to ensure that anti-socialist ideas would not come in the wake of Western capital and goods.
This was despite the pledge by the Chinese negotiation team yesterday to open up further the telecommunications field, including mobile phones and the Internet.