Cato Institute Book Review session: China's Implementation of the Rulings of WTO by W. Zhou

This event took place at Cato, Washington, DC, December 4, 2019 led by the Moderator James Bacchus, Weihuan Zhou of the University of New South Wales-Sydney, presenting, and Simon Lester of Cato, commenting.  The book: China's Implementation of the Rulings of the World Trade Organization, order online-- WWW.IPBBOOK.COM 

Professor Zhou offered his own evaluations of how China is faring in the WTO, particularly pointing to its record of handling complaints and disputes that have surfaced in DSM, the WTO mechanism for settling disputes.  I believe that part of his presentation was especially helpful in understanding why China takes so seriously its participation in WTO for expanding its trade and commerce network: viz., it demonstrates its willingness to be a true and trustworthy trading partner.  His book cites several instances of disputes with complainants and how China sought to comply with rulings against them.

Added to this feature in his talk, Dr. Zhou compared China's record of WTO compliance with that of the United States, which obviously has been a member of WTO many years longer.  He noted that the US does indeed make the effort to comply, though at times takes several times longer than it should take to do so.

But the important aspect of his opus is in highlighting the need for the WTO itself  to make improvements in its rules and procedures.  He noted that the organization does not support commercial innovation in that it permits companies of the larger nations to suppress industry-wide sharing of its professional, technical advances that are already on the market.  He observed that the practice of dumping is still allowed by its rules, too.  And he especially named the Chinese government for the practice of subsidizing home-grown favored industries to counter competition from abroad. 

All-in-all, if you missed his talk, you missed a vital contribution to establish global cooperation and foster international innovation among trading partners--the very aim of Globalization since the Seventeenth Century.  We'll be hearing from this erudite lecturer again and often!