One year after China joined the WTO the US gave it a mixed grade for compliance, expressing concern about slow progress on freeing agricultural trade and enforcing copyright protection.
The conclusion was made in a 50-page report sent Wednesday to Congress by the office of US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who is mandated by law to submit annual assessments of Beijing's compliance with its international trade obligations.
China joined the WTO Dec. 11, 2001, after 15 years of tortured negotiations, during which Washington and its European partners sought to pry open the country's vast and increasingly lucrative market.
"Overall, during the first year of its WTO membership, China made significant progress in implementing its WTO commitments, although much is left to do," the trade representative said.
He said Beijing had made many required tariff reductions, particularly for information technology, wood and paper products, chemicals, automobiles and auto parts, and had begun the process of removing numerous non-tariff barriers.
To comply with WTO requirements, China reviewed more than 2,500 trade-related laws and regulations, the report noted, citing Chinese government data. As a result, market access for US products to China "has generally improved."
The reforms seem to have had a positive effect on the investment climate, with China attracting 48 billion dollars in foreign capital in the first 11 months of this year, up 14.6 percent from the same period last year, the state-run People's Daily said yesterday.
But the Bush administration has "also found a number of causes for serious concern during China's first year of WTO membership," particularly in agriculture, intellectual property rights and services, Zoellick's report said.
Chinese export subsidies for corn have driven US corn traders from Asian markets.
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