Given where U.S. trade policy is at the moment, this doesn't seem like the best time for my latest piece, which is called "Unfinished Business: Bringing China Into the Club of Market-Oriented Countries." But sometimes all you can do is lay the groundwork for the future, which is what I was trying to do here. This is from the conclusion:
The goal of integrating China into the club of market-oriented countries is still worth pursuing. Both China and the rest of the world would be better off if China moved in this direction. While the way things played out after China's accession to the WTO was a missed opportunity, if we make China's economic structure a priority now, as it was in the 1990s, we might see some progress.
The current political environment may not support this approach, as keeping China out of the U.S. market has become the primary trade objective. And the best opportunity for pushing market-orientation may have been in the years immediately following China’s WTO accession in 2001. Nonetheless, completing the unfinished business of integrating China into the world trading system would still be of value today. It looks as though U.S. trade policymakers are in the midst of trying all other options at the moment, but if and when those do not succeed, the foundation exists for a more productive approach.
In terms of the reaction from China, some of the actions and rhetoric coming out of Washington these days could be characterized as “anti-China.” But establishing and applying a set of rules about market orientation should not be seen as punitive. Rather, it simply reflects what China and other WTO Members agreed to as part of China’s WTO accession. Everyone has an interest in, and benefits from, this system of rules. If approached diplomatically, a renewed effort to push for China to be more market-oriented could actually be part of an improvement in relations between China and the West.
It doesn't come out clearly just from the conclusion, but the core of my argument is that WTO complaints provide the best overall chance of encouraging China to become more market-oriented.
One thing I'm unsure of is how the various China trade hawks think about the structure of China's economy. Many of them focus very heavily on keeping Chinese products out of the U.S. market. For this group, what I've wondered is, would they event want to see China become more market-oriented? Or do they worry that this shift would make Chinese companies harder to compete with? I tried asking this of someone once on social media but didn't get a response.
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