My Take | Part 2 of 2: The political economy of Chinese-US rivalry – China did not get rich by exploiting WTO rules
- To the extent Beijing breached or did not follow the spirit and/or letter of World Trade Organization rules, such instances were often counterproductive. If Washington really wants to contain China’s rise, it should encourage the Chinese to commit more of those alleged breaches
I recently discovered I have an evil twin sister, Alexandra Lo, who writes for American publications such as Fortune and The Wall Street Journal.
Here’s a sample of what she wrote about how China took advantage of its WTO membership to become the world’s second largest economy by cheating other member states and unfairly gaining access to their economies.
“Since its accession to the World Trade Organization exactly 20 years ago, China has consistently fleeced the world with its mercantilist trade that now threatens to undermine the international rules-based system.
“China’s compliance with WTO rules is not just subpar but atrocious. It has actively evaded its WTO obligations much more frequently than other member countries and freely ignored the organisation’s rules and exploited its loopholes. Since its WTO accession in 2001, there have been 47 complaints lodged against China, accounting for a whopping 12.2 per cent of all WTO dispute cases.
“Senior US officials, both past and present, increasingly regret Washington’s decision to allow China to join the WTO. Their good intentions – to integrate China into the global trade system, encourage the switch to market capitalism and in time political liberalisation – have created a monster that now threatens not only the global trading system but liberal democracy itself.”
Sorry, just kidding; I don’t have a twin sister, evil or not. But I did throw all those sentences above together from outlets such as The WSJ, Fortune, Foreign Policy and – I just couldn’t help myself – a web magazine reportedly owned and operated by the cultish Falun Gong.