Political institutions, resistance and China's harmonization with international law

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 182, 2005, Pages 319-337

  Mertha, Andrew C ^a   Zeng, Ka ^b  

^a WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

LEGISLATION; POLITICAL SYSTEM; TRADE POLICY; WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION;

EID: 22144472992     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741005000214     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. Nicholas Lardy, Integrating China into the Global Economy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002). p. 66.
2. For example, the minister in charge of the telecommunications industry, Wu Jichuan, reportedly threatened to resign from his post when the terms of China's concessions were first made public.
3. See, for example, "Can the Chinese state meet its WTO obligations" Government reforms, regulatory capacity, and WTO membership," American Asian Review, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Summer 2002), pp. 194-95;
4. Dali Yang, "Survival of the fittest?" World Link, March/ April 1998;
5. Lardy, Integrating China, pp. 147-155.
6. Kenneth DeWoskin, "The WTO and the telecommunications sector in China," The China Quarterly (September 2001), p. 630;
7. Lardy, Integrating China, p. 153;
8. "Face value: the minister of arbitrary power," Economist. No. 357 (9 December 2000), p. 76.
9. Dali Yang, "Can the Chinese state meet its WTO obligations?" p. 197. Note, however, that such mergers are far from a panacea from an organizational and enforcement point of view, as we argue later.
10. Dali Yang, "China in 2002: leadership transition and the political economy of governance," Asian Survey, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2003), pp. 32-33.
11. "Hong Kong: overview of the new telecoms and internet regulations in the PRC," Mondaq Business Briefing, 16 March 2001.
12. "China to set up telecom industry regulatory commission," Sinocast, 7 September 2004.
13. For example, recent regulatory pronouncements make clear how China's top leadership plans to continue close management in order to preserve the state's commercial interests in this sector. All basic network operations will continue to require approval from the central regulatory authority and cannot suffer a reduction of state ownership below 51%.
14. Yiping Huang, China's Last Steps Across the River: Enterprise and Banking Reforms (Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2001);
15. "New law justifies banking watchdog," Xinhua News Service, 27 December 2003;
16. John P. Bonin and Yiping Huang, "Foreign entry into Chinese banking: does WTO membership threaten domestic banks?" The World Economy, Vol. 25, No. 8 (August 2002), pp. 1087-90;
17. "World Bank: state bank reform in China welcomed but takes time," Xinhua News Agency, 16 January 2004;
18. "Beijing plans to pull out of two big banks," New York Times, 14 January 2002.
19. Nicholas Lardy, "When will China's financial system meet China's needs?" in Nicholas C. Hope, Dennis Tao Yang and Mu Yang Li (eds.), How Far Across the River? Chinese Policy Reform at the Millennium (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). p. 73.
20. Ibid. pp. 74-78.
21. Ibid. p. 78.
22. Specifically, the reorganization of the PICC into a holding company and the establishment of three more independent state-owned insurance companies in 1999 have helped to revive market competition.
23. For a detailed account of the evolution of China's Insurance Industry, see Stephen P.D. Acry and Hui Xia, "Insurance and China's entry into the WTO." Risk Management and Insurance Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2003).
24. Dali Yang, "Can the Chinese state meet its WTO obligations?" p. 216.
25. Beijing qingnian bao (Beijing Youth Daily), 11 April 2001.
26. "China plans massive reform of insurance industry in public listing push," AFX European Focus, 26 January 2003.
27. Barry Naughton, "The decline of central control over investment in post-Mao China." in David Lampton (ed.), Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1987).
28. Susan Shirk, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
29. Andrew Wedeman makes an intriguing case that not simply decentralization but local protectionism itself was an important handmaiden to reform. See Wedeman, From Mao to Market: Rent Seeking, Local Protectionism, and Marketization in China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
30. Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 148-49.
31. See, for example, Zhongguo difang zhengfu tizhi gailun (The General Outline of Chinese Local Government Structure) (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 1998), pp. 1-22.
32. Edward Steinfeld, Forging Reform in China: The Fate of State-Owned Industry (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998).
33. Dali Yang, Beyond Beijing: Liberalization and the Regions in China (London: Routledge, 1997).
34. Barry Naughton, "How much can regional integration do to unify China's markets?" in Hope, Young and Li, How Far Across the River? pp. 204-232. Others, like Wedeman, argue that local protectionism was actually beneficial to China's economic reform, particularly with regard to China's movement away from price subsidies.
35. Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China.
36. Douglass North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981).
37. Interview 98CQ25. 3 September 1998.
38. This memo was only officially available to the following agencies: the State Economics and Trade Commission, the State Planning Commission, the State Commission for Restructuring the Economic System, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Electronics Industry, the Ministry of Electric Power, the Ministry of Railways, and China Unicom.
39. Andrew C. Mertha, "China's 'soft' centralization: shifting tiaolkuai authority relations since 1998" (forthcoming in The China Quarterly).
40. Earlier attempts at centralization in 1994-95 of the taxation bureau provided a blueprint for changing these other bureaucracies, which began around 1999-2000.
41. Interview 04KM02, 20 August 2004.
42. Li Fujin, Fula xitong chuizhi guanli tizhi de sikao (Thoughts on Vertical Management of the Judicial System) http://www.hncd.gov.cn/ zazhi/jiaotongshehui/ditqi/p36.htm,
43. and Zhifa difang baohu dangti daibiao huxu cifa xitong anshou chuizhi lingdao (The Judicial System Should Take the Lead in Combating Local Protectionism in the Judiciary) http://www.yzdsb.com.cn/20020312/ ca97913.htm.
44. Interview 03GY01, 19 July 2003.
45. Interview 02CD03,12 July 2002. Left unstated is the likely fact that Beijing would be unable to establish centralized relations with the provinces easily without a costly political battle that it could ill afford.
46. Mertha, "China's 'soft' centralization."
47. Interview 04SY01, 30 August 2004.
48. Interview 04KM02, 20 August 2004.
49. Xie Qingkui, The General Outline of Chinese Local Government Structure, pp. 7-14.
50. Mertha, The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).
51. Interviews 99BJ17B, 1 April 1999, and 02BJ01, 5 August 2002.
52. Interview 03BJ03, 9 March 2003.
53. US Chamber of Commerce, "China's WTO record: a two-year assessment," testimony by Myron Brilliant before the Trade Policy Staff Committee, 18 September 2003.
54. United States Trade Representative (USTR), "2003 report to Congress on China's WTO compliance," 18 December 2003. pp. 57-58.
55. Jeffrey A. Bader, "China's implementation of its WTO commitments: mixed results after two years," The Atlantic Council Asia Programs, October 2003.
56. US-China Business Council, "China's WTO implementation: a mid-year assessment," 2003.
57. USTR, "2003 Report to Congress," p. 56.
58. I b i d.
59. US Chamber of Commerce, "China's WTO record."
60. Penelope B. Prime, "China and the WTO: the first two years," China Research Center Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2004).