BOOK REVIEWS

Supachai Panitchpakdi and Mark L. Clifford, China and the WTO, Changing China, Changing World Trade

China and the WTO is the fruit of a collaboration between Supachai Panitch-pakdi, doctor in economics, Thailand's former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, who is to succeed Mike Moore at the head of the World Trade Organisation in September 2002, and journalist Mark L. Clifford, long based in Hong Kong and now Asia editor for Business Week.

The book aims above all to present to a wide readership, in a journalistic style, in six major chapters what the authors consider to be the main aspects of the relationship between China and the WTO. Thus, in their eyes, this accession « ranks in importance alongside China's first nuclear weapons test in 1964 », and will make it possible, despite a few challenges to overcome, to make China one of the two or three most prosperous economies of the mid twenty-first century (« China Rising », pp 1-32).

We thus understand fairly quickly the nature of the intention, a pat on the back for the Organisation for having succeeded, by dint of long and difficult negotiations, in integrating China into the concert of trading nations. The authors, who are fervent partisans of the liberalisation of world trade, make free with the superlatives to congratulate themselves on this historic event.

They do however recognise the extent of the problems facing the country—the shortcomings of the financial sector and of the legal system, the question of environmental degradation—and do not deny that there are many uncertainties (« China's Challenges : Accelerating Domestic Reforms », pp. 139-180). But this more balanced approach seems to be quickly replaced by the most optimistic prospective estimates on the macroeconomic consequences of « Greater China's » accession, an accession which is happening to the detriment of other Asian economies (pp. 101 onwards).

The authors sometimes seem to be blinded by enthusiasm. In several places, they adopt the nationalist discourse of the Chinese authorities, for example in stating that China's accession, coupled with the Olympic Games in 2008, are like a revenge for the humiliations undergone in the nineteenth century (p. 7). Similarly, they take an exclusively negative retrospective view of Western presence in China at the beginning of the twentieth century. As for the last twenty years of reforms, they are presented very succinctly as resulting from « simple » decisions taken by a « strong, effective and pragmatic » State (p. 23).

More critical is the chapter in which the authors reassess the difficult bilateral negotiations between China and the US (a summary of the agreement is provided as an annex). These difficulties are very largely attributed to the inconsistencies of the Clinton administration.

However it is in the final chapter, « Making Globalization and the WTO Work for All », that the intention of the book is revealed. The authors emphasise to what extent the stakes of China's accession to the WTO were linked not only to the future of China and of Asia—and therefore to some extent to world economic growth—but also to the future of the organisation itself. This subject, often tackled by the international press, raises interesting strategic and geo-economic questions which are, however, difficult to answer. Will China come to the defence of developing countries by re-establishing a certain balance within an international organisation which is seen by the opponents of globalisation as a club for rich countries directed by the United States and the interests of the great powers ? It is highly unlikely. Beijing has never, for one thing, shown itself to be very determined, judging by its attitude within general or technical international organisations, and political realism, moreover, is likely to guide a power which seeks to influence international trade and diplomacy.

All in all, this book, which would have been improved by appearing a little later and integrating the data available since the 11th of December, seems to testify more to the power struggle between the forces of pro- and anti-globalisation, than to provide a cogently argued analysis of the consequences for China of its accession to the WTO.

Translated from the French original by Michael Black