It is therefore remains a mystery why Chinese suddenly felt the urge to join WTO in a hurry. WTO treaty is a set of rules. An interesting episode is that the US insisted to extend the period of protection over its textile and steel industries during the negotiations before Zhu's arrival at Washington. It is also ironic, for the major reason for the US to reject China's bid to join GATT, the predecessor of WTO, was that China wanted to have a long transition period, designated generally to a developing country, to protect its industries, while the US wanted to dismantle the protection in a shorter period, a standard applied to developed nations. The global free market, a market without national boundary, is still a concept, not a reality.
National governments are still the most powerful forces in the global trade.
Even the most developed nations like the US and the EU members are maintaining various means of protections. The trade restrictions and government subsidies on agriculture are common practice on both sides of the Atlantic, for example. The reality of the world still is that each country pushes for the free trade in those areas that will benefit itself the most. It doesn't mean that the weaker players would have no voice at all. They have not asked, for example, why can't the labor market in the world be liberalized.