There is no firmly established and enforceable system of contract and commercial law, Chinese laws tend to be arbitrary and opaque, tariffs on U.S. goods remain high, and both imports and exports all too frequently require licenses and inspections which are not governed by fair, uniform and transparent rules. In recent years, the Chinese have made real progress in many of these problem areas, and the U.S. Trade Representatives and other U.S. negotiators have been effective in working with the Chinese to win at least verbal commitment to many WTO standards. Some tariffs have been lowered, foreign investment rules have been eased, a regime of intellectual property protection has been established, and the principles of transparency and national treatment have made progress. Unfortunately, for every step forward there seems to be a step back. Thus new rules are all too frequently created to offset the impact of liberalization measures.
China also maintains a variety of informal but effective protection mechanisms.
Of greater concern is the inability, or outright indifference of the Chinese to enforce the agreements to which they have given their sovereign assurance. It took several iterations over the past six years to get an acceptable IPR agreement with the Chinese, and specialized training for Chinese jurists and law enforcement officials so that they could implement it. The 1992 Market Access Agreement required the Chinese to take the seemingly simple step of publishing all laws and regulations affecting imports and exports, yet it has failed to do so. Most egregiously, China has not published any laws or regulations regarding the huge government procurement sector. In recent years, additionally, the Chinese have frequently circumvented the textile import quotas reached in bilateral negotiations.