Legal reform in China’s Trade and Investment System for WTO accession
纪文华
【关键词】法律 修改 WTO 中国 外贸 投资
【全文】
In recent years, China, with the aim to join the World Trade Organization (the “WTO”), speeded up its reform so as to boost the development of market economy and enhance the competitive ability of domestic enterprises (although some efforts accomplished nothing). At the same time, the Chinese government, in order to meet requirements of its WTO accession, launched extensive adjustments and reforms to related laws and rules pursuant to WTO regulations and China’s commitments. All these efforts are to establish a self-called uniform, fair and transparent legal system, of which laws and regulations on the administration of foreign trade, investment and economic cooperation bear the brunt and stand as the primary part.
It is a well-recognized practice in China that a massive task usually is carried out through a kind of national movements . This is also the case to the legal reform for China’s WTO accession. Under the guidance of the State Council, a large-scale movement to sorting-out, amend and enact laws, administrative regulations and departmental ruleson the central government level of China was initiated from early 2000 to the end of 2002. As the result of this legal restructuring movement, a renewed legal system concerning foreign interests comes up with more WTO compliance than before.
I. The Process of the Legal Reform Movement
In 1999, in order to make timely political and economic response to the coming accession of China to the WTO, a leading group was set up by the State Council. The head of the group is State Councilor Ms. WU Yi , while on deal-broken issues and at impasse moments of the negotiations, more senior leaders were involved in the decision-making process and dominated the directions of negotiation.
Pursuant to the lockstep arrangement of governmental framework, and asked
by the State Council , all competent departments of the State Council, whose authorities concern foreign trade, investment and economic cooperation, accordingly set up their own temporary working teams . The general mandate of such team was to check the subjects within authorities of its own department, review and clear laws, regulations and rules its competences based on in the light of WTO agreements and China’s commitments. In respect of laws, regulations and rules, which were in conflict with WTO rules and China’s commitments, the abolishment or amendment work must be done as soon as possible. The central government believes that by doing that China’s determinations and capacities of WTO rule implementation can be fully revealed. Among a good number of ministries, MOFTEC, the State Economic and Trade Commission (“SETC”), the State Development and Planning Commission (“SDPC”) and the Customs and the State General Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine (“AQSIQ”) attracted much attention.
At the beginning of 2000, just a short time after the leader group was formed in the State Council, an ad hoc “WTO Legal Work Group” was established in MOFTEC. Minister Shi Guangsheng and China’s chief negotiator--Mr. LONG Yongtu took the leadership, and the office of this Group was affiliated to the Department of Treaty and Law, an in-house branch responsible for legal services and legislative work within MOFTEC.
According to the official statistic MOFTEC declared in public , by the end of 2001, 1413 legal documents concerning foreign trade and investment had been sorted, consisting of 6 national laws, 164 administrative regulations, 887 departmental rules, 191 bilateral agreements on foreign trade and economic cooperation, 72 bilateral investment protection agreements and 93 agreements on double taxation avoidance. In accordance with the plans for amendment and enactment, 381 pieces had been abolished, 60 pieces were to be amended among what were sorted out, and 20 new ones need to be legislated. As a matter of fact, a great number of internal-circulated documents, which have been criticized for years because of transparency deficiency, were abrogated at the same time. For a certain unbeknown reason this achievement was not well advocated as before.
After the hard work of more than two years, this comprehensive legal reform movement in MOFTEC reached a conclusion at the end of June 2002 after lots of arduous negotiations, meetings and bargains. The outcome was attention-getting in terms of the large number of regulatory documents reviewed and the dramatic changes made. It was comparatively objective to say that this legal reform movement made China’s foreign legal system more systematic, uniform and transparent than before, and exhibited the determination of the Chinese government to shape domestic regulatory framework to satisfy requirements of WTO agreements.
