> when the other party of that agreement is doing it all can to avoid the spirit and letter of the agreement I hear this claim often about China (particularly

> when the other party of that agreement is doing it all can to avoid the spirit and letter of the agreement I hear this claim often about China (particularly from Americans), but I think it's very far from being true. China underwent massive, extremely painful reforms in order to join the WTO, on a scale that would be difficult for most Americans to imagine. For example, China basically built an entire intellectual property legal system from scratch. Or another example: China split up numerous large state-owned enterprises and forced the resulting companies to operate on a for-profit basis, which meant that tens of millions of workers lost their jobs and many more lost benefits. I think most of the exaggerated statements about China not caring about WTO rules stem from a basic misunderstanding both of how the Chinese economy works and what WTO rules require.