As the clock continues to tick away, US and Chinese negotiators remain at loggerheads over the country's 13-year effort to join the WTO.
While no one has publicly ruled out China's chance of gaining entry this year, hopes are fading fast.
The WTO will hold a ministerial meeting in Seattle from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, and this is widely seen as an informal deadline for China to become a member.
If Beijing does not gain entry by that time, it will likely be shut out of the upcoming round of negotiations, which could last for several years. And by that time, China would likely have to pay an even higher price in terms of liberalizing measures.
Souring relations with the US have not helped much. The two sides came close to reaching an agreement in April when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji took with him to Washington a package of unprecedented market opening measures.
US President Bill Clinton, not keen to take on powerful American business and labor interests, rejected the offer, and Zhu returned empty handed. Making matters worse, when he returned home he faced a hostile reaction to his offer from ministers and heads of state enterprises, who had learned about the contents of the concession package when it was posted on a Website of the US Trade Representative's office. They were not pleased with what they saw, arguing that China had given away too much.
The accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade followed a month later, and WTO talks were called off by an angry China.
Talks resumed last month with the US, and then this month with the EU, but there appears to be little -- if any -- cause for optimism.
The official China Daily seemed to throw its support behind China's entry to the world trade body last week when it published an article saying the benefits of being a part of the WTO far outweighed the negatives.
The newspaper played down fears that WTO entry would result in millions of Chinese being thrown out of work, arguing that membership would put pressure on money-losing state owned enterprises to become more competitive, and that the removal of trade barriers would stimulate a new round of foreign investment (a point supported by many foreign investors in China).
The newspaper argued that WTO entry would attract more foreign firms, which it said created jobs and brought in new technology and management methods. It said further that output by foreign invested companies was 7.8 percentage points higher than that of state-owned enterprises in 1998, and that China's most competitive sectors--textiles and electronics -- enjoyed very little protection, while telecommunications and financial services--the most coddled -- were also the most fragile.
Reuters quoted unnamed analysts as saying that the release of this "pro-WTO commentary" by the China Daily "could be seen as a fresh salvo by reformists amid last-ditch negotiations.
One major problem is that Zhu's far-reaching package of concessions may no longer be on the table. Long Yongtu, China's chief WTO negotiator, who seems to have been frozen out of discussions with the US and the EU this month, said that the deal Zhu offered the US in April was off. According to the China Daily, Long said the list of concessions included 15 mistakes.
Shi Guansheng, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, seemed to confirm this change when he said that the talks between President Jiang Zemin and President Bill Clinton during the APEC Forum in Auckland should now serve as the basis for further negotiations -- and not Zhu's meeting last April.
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