Dilemma of national development in globalization : the politics behind China's accession to the WTO

As a low-income developing economy, China joined the WTO by making huge concessions in market access. China's radical liberalization of trade and investment is unprecedented in the history of the GATT and the WTO since all the now- developed countries (NOCs) had experienced "industrialization preceding liberalization" in their take-off stage. China joined the WTO at the time when its industrialization lingered in the 1990s and the economic growth was getting increasingly dependent on export and FOI. The WTO, upon its creation, was no longer about development, and China was to be tightly bound by the rules of the game of the WTO that has institutionalized the neoclassical creed of comparative advantage to legalize "protectionism of the strong" at the expense of poor nations. Why and in what way can China become an exception to the precedence of the illiberal pathway of development that has enabled successful industrialization of the NOCs? Existing accounts attributed China's WTO accession to its pressing demands for sustaining economic growth and restructuring of inefficient stateowned- enterprises (SOEs), claiming that it would experience a "short-term pains and long-term gains" after the accession. The two factors, though sound for China's primary motives, did not suffice to explain why China bid for the WTO membership at all cost. The argument of this thesis is that the dynamics of liberalization ensued from the path dependence of China's economic reform and development in the 1990s. The overriding legitimation concern of China's authoritarian regime after Tiananmen entailed politicization of economic growth that made radical liberalization a necessity. Global capitalism played an important role in inducing China's deep integration. The interaction of China's market "socialism" and global capitalism generated a powerful self-reinforcing process that set China on a dependent path of development and locked in its dependency characterized by a technologyless industrialization in globalization.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo