| China is often portrayed as a mercantilist power that seeks advantage at the expense of others and violates important international trade rules when it is convenient to do so. This dissertation examines this argument by considering China's membership in the World Trade Organization and activities in other areas. Among the issues I consider are China's compliance with WTO obligations, China's involvement in WTO dispute settlement, China's receptivity to international norms, China's behavior on intellectual property rights protection, automotive production and banking services, and China's involvement in preferential trade agreements. Findings in this dissertation are that China's overall compliance with WTO obligations is reasonably good, that variation exists across sectors and topic areas, with protection of intellectual property rights generally considered a "problem area" and autos and banking, while not without problems of their own, less conflict-ridden, that China is becoming more assertive in bringing complaints against others at the WTO and that China is becoming more involved in preferential trade agreements for a variety of political and economic reasons. The dissertation also finds that the role of the WTO in generating change in China---once quite substantial on matters such as legal reform, tariff liberalization and service sector opening---is diminishing now that China has phased-in major commitments, the Doha trade talks have yet to produce an agreement and efforts have intensified to create a Chinese "innovation society." Explanatory variables in this study are domestic politics, state capacity, concerns about international fairness and the strict monitoring and enforcement mechanisms of the WTO. The view of China that emerges from this study is of a society that, while it sometimes exceeds the bounds of WTO legality, is not quite the "international bad actor" that it is sometimes made out to be. |
