The Glossary
China's WTO Accession
December 11, 2001 — the hinge of the modern relationship.
Definition
After fifteen years of negotiation, China acceded to the World Trade Organization on terms including tariff bindings, market-access schedules and — contestedly — treatment as a non-market economy in anti-dumping cases for fifteen years. The following decade saw Chinese exports quadruple and U.S. imports from China peak at 21.6% of goods imports in 2017. The 2018-2025 measures largely bypassed WTO dispute channels; the Appellate Body's paralysis since 2019 removed the referee those earlier disputes assumed.
Why it matters
Accession is the reference point for both the relationship's golden age and its current institutional decay — trade lawyers date the system's crisis from the same years.