--The China Protocol provides laxer rules that supersede the normal WTO disciplines regarding price comparability in determining subsidies and dumping (i.e., non-market economy status) for trade with China. Some of these dispensations expire after 15 years and some are permanent.

--The China Working Party report provides special rules regarding trade in textiles and clothing wherein an incumbent WTO member may impose specified quantitative restrictions on China if: (1) the member believes that Chinese products “threaten the orderly development of trade” in such products and (2) China has not agreed to impose comparable export restraints to those specified.

**Source:** Charnovitz (2008).

Related to the issue of “WTO-minus” rights is the question of transition periods. Applicants would typically stress the need to adopt thousands of new technical standards or regulations, and point to the transition arrangements original WTO members benefited from (e.g. one year, five years, and eleven years, respectively, for developed, developing, and least-developed countries to implement the TRIPS Agreement). According to the WTO Secretariat, however, “throughout the accession process, conformity with the WTO Agreements is the standard against which acceding governments’ trade policies are measured. In addition, maintaining a standstill on WTOinconsistent measures, as well as on tariff increases, is generally agreed principle in WTO accession negotiations. Therefore, governments coming through the accession process after years of negotiations are generally well-equipped to participate as full and effective players in the WTO from the day of accession, thus strengthening the rules-based multilateral trading system.” (WTO Document WT/ACC/10/Rev. 3 of 28 November 2005: 15) In other terms, there should be no need for transitional arrangements. In practice, some transitional arrangements have been granted on a limited number of areas and for specific periods of time, but the applicant had to demonstrate that it had done as much as possible to bring its system in line with WTO requirements and had to present a plan and timetable for next steps before making the request. Transition periods have also been extended more readily to LDCs, in accordance with the WTO Guidelines on LDCs’ accession (WTO Document WT/L/508 of 20 January 2003).

The question of “WTO-plus” obligations and “WTO-minus” rights remains controversial. Acceding to the WTO means transferring some sovereignty to an international body. The “powerbased” accession process could exacerbate some hard feelings against this transfer: “WTO-plus” or “WTO-minus” commitments are seen as additional losses of sovereignty that a country would not have consented to in the first place, or a breach of the principle of “sovereign equality of nations” (Art. 2:1 of the Charter of the United Nations). However, this should be tempered: first, all members are conscious about their sovereignty, and the debate on “policy space” perfectly illustrates that tensions are not confined to the context of accession; second, if one believes that the WTO disciplines help governments adopt more efficient policies, then “more WTO” should not be such a bad thing (Cattaneo, 2005). Here again, passions surrounding the accession debate seem to have overshadowed the rationale and benefits of WTO membership.

Along these lines, Ya Qin (2003: 507, 511-2) observed that the “WTO-plus” market economy obligations in the China Accession Protocol filled a gap in WTO law and “to the extent that they reflect the market economy assumptions of the WTO system, these undertakings do not necessarily impose more stringent obligations on China when compared with other members who are traditionally market economies”. Other “WTO-plus” rules of the Protocol could also be expected to have a salutary effect on China and world trade, “because the “plus” rules are generally consistent with the WTO objective of trade liberalization and are created to strengthen rather than weaken WTO multilateral disciplines. A more transparent, uniform, and liberal trade and investment regime in China will certainly help to boost trade and investment there, which in turn can contribute to a growth in the global production of, and trade in, goods and services”.

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