China and the world trading system : will 'in and up' be replaced by 'down and out'?

Abstract

This paper examines the integration of China into the world trading system, focusing on the size and nature of the shocks that this implied for the world economy and the reactions to those shocks proposed by policy makers and academics. While the WTO has acted as a forum in which many of the adjustment pressures created by China’s rapid growth were dealt with fairly constructively, the recent shift by the United States and the EU to mega-regional trade deals, notably the Tran-Pacific Partnership, and that exclude China, marks a dangerous shift away from engaging the world’s second largest economy as an equal in a cooperative fashion.