“Building a market economy through WTO-inspired reform of state-owned enterprises in China.”

Regarding Chinese state capitalism, which seems to be strengthening with state-owned enterprise reform, there is a prevalent view that existing rules under the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework are inadequate for addressing it.  This article questions the validity of this perspective through a careful examination of WTO agreements and jurisprudence.  It specifically contends that countries can exploit current WTO rules pertaining to subsidies and China-specific obligations to tackle issues stemming from China’s state capitalism.  It also argues a more realistic approach would be one that focuses on encouraging China to pursue market-oriented reforms through WTO litigation based on existing rules. 

This article originally appeared as: Weihuan Zhou, Henry Gao, and Xue Bai, “Building a market economy through WTO-inspired reform of state-owned enterprises in China,” International & Comparative Law Quarterly Vol. 68, No. 4 (2019), pp. 977-1022.