Wto Link To Put Heat On Tokyo - China to join World Trade Organization - Brief Article

Business Asia, June, 2000 by Alan Wheatley

By boosting trade and investment with the rest of Asia, China's accession to the World Trade Organisation will mark another step towards its emergence as an economic force that may one day rival Japan in the region.

But analysts say that day is still a long way off. Although Beijing is increasingly keen to prove itself a good economic neighbour, the critics say it is too weak and poor to be able to play the part of a regional economic power broker -- for now.

"The Chinese agenda to some extent is to get back the role on Asia that has been theirs traditionally and which the Japanese have been temporarily occupying -- temporarily for the last 100-odd years," said Jean-Pierre Lehmann, a professor of international political economy and executive director of the Swiss-Asian foundation based in Lausanne.

China might find it hard to knuckle down to the disciplines of the WTO, but joining the global trade watchdog -- expected by the end of the year -- will be a landmark in its integration into the world community, according to Lehmann.

Within a quarter of a century Shanghai could be on par with London and New York as a financial centre and will eventually dwarf Hong Kong and Tokyo, he argues.

"China is on its way to becoming a really extraordinary economic weight in the world," he added.

Noboru Hatakeyama, chairman of the Japan External Trade Organisation, sees WTO membership very much through the prism of Beijing's need to spur its ailing industries to become more efficient by exposing them to foreign competition.

"This is very much enlightened foreign peer pressure to promote reform," he said.

Using a Japanese saying, Hatakeyama claims China's leaders are more preoccupied with the flies buzzing around their head than with thoughts of regional power plays.

"China is too busy dealing with domestic matters to think about that kind of thing," Hatakeyama said.

Nevertheless, Stephen Leong of Malaysia's Institute of Strategic and International Studies says WTO-driven liberalisation of China's economy will enhance the process of East Asian cooperation that Beijing has been keen to espouse under the umbrella of "ASEAN 3".

-- Reuters