CHINA AND THE WTO

摘要

Dec. 11, 2001, came and went without anyone paying much attention to the date. I would guess that most of the world was still preoccupied with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to notice a relatively minor event that took place three months later. Still, it was an incident that would affect many people in many ways. Recently the 10-year anniversary came and went, again with nobody noticing—no coverage in the mainstream media, no mention in manufacturing journals, nothing at all.It was the day that China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO).If you're like me, your first question is, What is the WTO? The name sums it up, but if you're like me, you suspect it's essentially a committee that got out of hand and became a sprawling international bureaucracy that, like most bureaucracies, does very little, very slowly.