China viewed WTO accession as a mechanism to force difficult economic reform internally (including making tens of millions of Chinese unemployed as they restructured state-owned enterprises) and to lock itself into a commitment to stay on a path of economic liberalization, not merely to gain market access.

causalpending

Speaker

Mike Froman

Evidence Quote

They very much viewed uh WTO accession as a way of forcing very difficult economic reform in their in their country and they affirmatively used the accession process to do so...including making, you know, tens of millions of Chinese unemployed as they restructured some of the stateowned enterprises. And they viewed locking into the WTO um as a way of ensuring that they would stay on this path of reform.

Source

The Challenge of ChinaThe Aspen Institute
Created: 8/11/2026, 6:26:02 AM

My Notes

Loading notes...