China’s Non-market Economy Treatment in the Multilateral Trading System

The uniqueness of China’s accession to the MTS is not only reflected by its long and tortuous process, but also embodied in its harsh accession terms. Setting aside the special and differential (SD it was exposed, instead, to the NME treatment in the strictest form. The MTS and its key members, ignoring the target and achievements of China’s economic transformation and its cooperation with international institutions in the course of accession, refused China the same treatment as other transition-economy members; rather, they further strengthened and expanded the GATT-minus rules shaped in the 1960s and the 1970s for planned-economy members and the GATT/WTO-plus rules developed since the 1990s for transition-economy members and imposed both on China.