China to reopen talks with Union on WTO entry bid

Date: 07/10/1999

By Shada Islam

EU AND Chinese trade negotiators are set to reopen talks on China's membership of the World Trade Organisation as Beijing makes an 11th-hour bid to join the global trade body ahead of a key meeting in Seattle next month.

The discussions will kick off in Berlin on Saturday (9 October) at a meeting between Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Chinese Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng in the sidelines of an encounter between Asian and European economics ministers.

Lamy will stress that the Union still supports early Chinese membership of the WTO, but officials say he will also warn that "there will be no agreement on China's membership of the WTO until European interests are taken into account" .

The warning follows the resumption of bilateral talks between the US and Beijing late last month which prompted European fears that the two would try to present the Union with a fait accompli.

A detailed wish-list of European demands on industrial tariffs, agriculture and access to China's growing services sector will be handed to Beijing's chief WTO trade negotiator Long Yongtu when he visits Brussels for more detailed talks later this month. The technical negotiations will be backed up by political pressure as Chinese President Jiang Zemin embarks on an official tour of the UK, France and Portugal at the end of October.

Beijing's decision to resume negotiations, which it suspended in May following NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, is seen as a welcome sign. But EU officials warn that the chances of a breakthrough remain slim.

"We are looking forward to reopening the negotiations with China but there are no signs that we will get a quick agreement, especially before the Seattle meeting," said one.

A key problem for both the Union and the US is that China appears to be back-tracking on the list of concessions offered by Prime Minister Zhu Rongji during a visit to the US last April.

Although those offers were spurned as inadequate by President Bill Clinton at the time, US and EU officials now admit they were by far the most detailed market access concessions tabled by Beijing in almost 13 years of talks on WTO membership.

"If the offer made in April is no longer the reference point for negotiations, then we are in real trouble," stressed one Union official.

EU and Chinese trade negotiators are set to reopen talks on China's membership of the World Trade Organisation as Beijing makes an 11th-hour bid to join the global trade body ahead of a key meeting in Seattle in November 1999.