Study Of China's Separate Customs Territory And Legal Issues

With the mainland China and Taiwan' s entry into WIO, a new situation of"one country, four seats" in WTO has emerged. In the WIO history, there areno rules for China to comply with and also there is no experience for China todraw on. If we deal with the economic and trade relations among the fourmembers of China in accordance with the present WTO rules, the characteristic ofthe circumstances of "one country, four seats" and the trade relations amongthem cannot be embodied. So a mechanism is needed to cater to the needs of thefour-party economic relations which reflects the one country model while alsoreflects the four customs regions. The thesis proposes to research how to use thepresent WTO mechanism to set up the legal mode of the economic integrationamong the mainland China and the three separate customs territories.The thesis composes of four parts.The first part discusses the definition of the separate customs territory and itshistory. The conception of "separate customs territory" was first appeared inGATr1947. Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the Worm Trade Organizationinherits the regulations about the concept, and this Agreement has a newdevelopment.The second part discusses the legal status of the separate customs territory inGATT/WTO. The significance of the situation of "one country, four seats" is tomake sure the legal status of the separate customs territory in GATT/WTO. BothHong Kong, China and Macau, China are the separate contracting party of GATTand original member of WTO, and the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan,Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (Chinese Taipei) is the member by accession.The third part demonstrates the mutual relations between the mainland Chinaand the separate customs territories. The thesis holds that the mutual relationsbetween the mainland China and the separate customs territories are "specialmember relations". The word "special" means as follows: First, in entity, themutual relations performances the relations among the equal members of WTO.Second, from the procedural angle, it expresses the relations of restriction and berestricted. Third, in essence, the mutual relations means the domestic economic relations between the sovereignty state and the separate customs territories. Lastly,from the view of matters, it means closer economical partnership.The last part brings up the legal arrangement of economic relations among themainland China and the separate customs territories. It is necessary to set up the"Mainland China and the Separate Customs Territories Free Trade Area"complying with Article 24 of GATE But we need a growing economicintegration. We can first sign an "interim agreement" which has atransition-period, then go on to the free trade area and the higher level integration.Because of the political obstacle of Taiwan, we can first set up the free trade areaamong the mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, then the second step, setup the "Mainland China and the Separate Customs Territories Free Trade Area".Lastly, the thesis discusses the concrete content of this Arrangement.