DOHA, Qatar – The World Trade Organization played its China card last weekend as if it was trump.
Days before it was clear whether the world’s trade ministers would be able to succeed in launching a new negotiation during the Nov. 9-13 WTO meeting, it was able to score a practical and public relations victory by accepting the world’s largest country into the group.
For WTO members, it was something to celebrate, after a 15-year negotiation.
“It really is a seminal event,” said a French official on Nov. 10, the day before the official welcome. “The W in WTO stands for world. But the W without China was not a real W. Now it will be.”
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American and European ministers held events with Chinese officials to talk about the benefits of having China inside the trade club. While groups claiming to speak for the developing world have been denouncing WTO as a rich nation club, the world’s most populous developing nation with a huge rural population has joined.
“Their participation in the WTO will be a boost for them and for us,” said United States trade representative Robert Zoellick Nov. 10.
Canadian officials also were brimming with optimism about the development.
Chief Canadian agriculture negotiator Suzanne Vinet said it will give Canadian canola, wheat and lentil producers a chance to compete for more sales into the huge Chinese market, since the Chinese have agreed to grant greater access and to reduce tariffs.
“It’s going to take time,” she told reporters. “It won’t happen overnight. They have to make enormous changes in how they operate their system. But over time, it should be beneficial.”
Foreign affairs official Terrance Williams, chief Canadian negotiator on the Chinese accession issue, said China had agreed to terms “very advantageous to Canada and Canadian exporters. I think it will both increase our access and give us greater certainty of access to the market.”
Vinet said that it is almost as important as what the Chinese agreed not to do.
They agreed not to use export subsidies on their agricultural production, relieving the concerns of countries including Canada that China could become a powerful export rival.
And the Chinese agreed to cap their domestic supports at present levels and then to gradually reduce them.
Vinet said it also is important that China has agreed to live by other WTO rules as well, including binding settlement of trade disagreements.
“It means we now will have the capacity to deal with the Chinese using the same rules as we do for others,” she said.
“We also have access to the dispute settlement process if we have disagreements with them.”
While other exporters were predicting China’s agreement to play by WTO rules will help them make sales, Vinet said Canada’s 40-year trading relationship with the Chinese and the high quality of Canadian product could give Canada the sales edge.
