December 11, 2001

China and the World Trade Organization

China becomes the 143rd member of the World Trade Organization

China did not join at the Doha ceremony everyone photographed. It joined exactly 30 days later, when the protocol's legal clock ran out.

Membership on a thirty-day clock

China's WTO accession protocol entered into force on 11 December 2001, making the People's Republic of China the organization's 143rd member.

The Ministerial Conference had approved the accession package by consensus on 10 November, and China deposited its ratification with director-general Mike Moore at the Doha ministerial meeting on 11 November.

The protocol provided that it would enter into force on the 30th day following acceptance, which is where the December date comes from.

What took effect with it

The accession package incorporated China's schedules of commitments on market access for goods and services, together with the accession working-party report.

On accession China fully applied the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, rather than receiving a further general transition period.

Many of its tariff and services commitments were phased schedules rather than reforms switched on in final form overnight.

Two lines of shorthand that do not survive the text

The protocol did not designate China a non-market economy for 15 years. It authorized special rules for determining normal value in anti-dumping cases, subject to producer and industry findings; the WTO Appellate Body emphasized that those provisions concerned normal-value methodology. They expired on 11 December 2016.

China also did not become a GATT observer in 1986. It became an observer in 1982 and applied in 1986 to resume contracting-party status — the start of roughly 15 years of accession negotiation.

Hong Kong, China and Macao, China kept their own separate-customs-territory memberships; China's accession did not absorb them.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited

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