Monday marks the fifth anniversary of China’s accession to the World Trade Organization.
China’s former chief WTO negotiator Long Yongtu says the accession has brought both rule and an open mind to the country.
During the past five years, China has developed more than people expected during the negotiation period.
Xu Weiyi has the story.
Reporter:
 Long Yongtu says negotiators were very concerned about the difficulties China would face after the accession during the negotiations five years ago.
But the situation, in every way and sector, has turned out to be better than they expected.
“We later found that we underestimated the competitiveness of many Chinese enterprises. We overestimated the speed at which overseas companies would come to China. For example, their entry into China’s finance and insurance market is still very slow five years after the accession.”
Long Yongtu says thanks to the abundant preparations made before the accession, China has had a relatively easy time after opening up its market.
As a result, foreign investors have been very prudent when considering entering fields like the telecommunications and insurance markets.
In 1999, as China’s chief WTO negotiator, Long Yongtu held many talks with the United States.
He says the most difficult areas on the negotiation table were the agriculture, auto and service industries.
“I think those areas that people thought would suffer the most after the accession have turned out to benefit the most. For example, people worried a lot about agriculture. But, in fact, the largest improvement in China’s agriculture over the past few years has been its new understanding of international criteria for agricultural products, including criteria for quality, the environment, and health.”
Long Yongtu says China’s entry into the WTO has increased the competitiveness of Chinese agriculture.
Meanwhile, China’s auto industry has also developed along with the outside world and has acquired a more open mind.
“The most important thing in China is making cars. If a car is made in China, its taxation revenue will belong to China, the jobs are for Chinese, and the cars will be tagged ‘made in China.’ Its individual name, in the end, I think, is not that important.”
Commenting on the anti-dumping investigation into Chinese enterprises, Long Yongtu says the issue is only over half percent of overall trade, thus people should not get too worked up about it. He notes the progress of the current debate, as it reveals how people are using legal rather than political means to solve trade disputes.
Xu Weiyi, CRI news
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