Changing times demand bigger role in WTO

Tu Xinquan, a senior researcher in WTO affairs at the University of International Business and Economics

China can play leading role in WTO process

Since the Doha Development Round could not be completed by the end of 2011, the WTO is finding it difficult to propel the talks forward.

The problem lies in the WTO's objectives. The new topics of WTO talks increasingly involve the domestic policies of its participants. But this is not the time to discuss or change domestic policies. For the same reason some bilateral free trade area agreements have made little progress in the talks on free trade over the past few years. So China should start playing a leading role in the WTO process, for which it needs to make a lot of preparations on the economic and policy fronts. That China will continue to support globalization is beyond doubt. The problem is that the international community lacks consensus on what kind of new policies and theories to adopt. WTO members need to solve this problem in the coming years before propelling globalization forward.