Promise Must Be Kept and Action Must Be Resolute

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, November 22, 2001

Promise Must Be Kept and Action Must Be Resolute

In joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), China has promised to the world people: Abiding by international rules and gradually opening its markets. Acting in line with the saying, "a promise is weightier than one thousand ounces of gold", China has won the extensive trust and favorable comments of the international community.

Honoring commitments is the traditional virtue of the Chinese nation. In the Analects of Confucius: Zi Lu, China's great thinker and educator Confucius stated, "being true in word and resolute in deed." Long Yongtu, chief negotiator of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), properly quoted this sentence to express China's attitude toward its accession to the WTO at a recent international conference, which was acclaimed by the participants. This ancient instruction has persisted for thousands of years and has become the norm of conduct universally acknowledged by humankind, it has been linked up with the modern international economy, this was something unexpected to the then Confucius.

Promise has never been made under the impetus of one-way interests, only when it is established on the basis of common interests, can the achievements be shared to the maximum and can mutual trust be established. This is exactly where the vitality of the instruction "being true in word and resolute in deed" lies.

Behind promise are pragmatic spirit and concrete action. As a matter of fact, without pragmatic spirit, it would have been impossible for the negotiation on China's accession to the WTO to finally reach agreement after a long period of 15 years. It takes time for the world to understand China and China to go globe-wide, it also takes time to face up to reality. At the same time, China's concrete action does not begin from the day of its accession to the WTO, but rather it began from the start of negotiation 15 years ago. For instance, the Chinese government has repeatedly lowered the general tariff level on its own initiatives, with the average tax rate having been reduced from 46 percent to around 15 percent; the over 1,200 kinds of non-tariff measures adopted in the early 1990 have been gradually abolished; the standard for the access of foreign capital has also been lowered year by year, the endeavor of opening in the field of service trade has been increased, expanding step by step in the opening quantity and scope to finance, insurance, telecommunications, commerce, foreign trade, transportation, tourism, intermediary department and other social service industries. In order to connect foreign-related policy and legal system with the world trade organization, the State has stepped up efforts to sort out and revise about 2,300 relevant documents of laws and regulations, the new-edition laws on Chinese-foreign joint ventures, cooperative enterprises and solely-owned enterprises examined and approved by the National People's Congress (NPC), the Patent Law, Copyright Law, Trademark Law promulgated or revised in accordance with the intellectual property agreement have been published one after another. In July this year, the State again drastically reduced the central government price-set commodities and services to 13 kinds, thus basically formed a pricing mechanism based mainly on market regulation. Several days ago, MOFTEC was permitted to newly set up three special WTO agencies, providing government mechanism guarantee after WTO entry. Of course, fulfillment of promise still continues. There are still long years ahead to effect a change, in a certain scope and a certain realm, from partial opening to all-directional and multi-level opening; from policy opening to foreseeable opening under the legal framework; and from unilateral, self-opening to two-way, mutual opening with other WTO members.

China is the largest developing country and the Chinese nation is a nation with a long history. In the said Analects, Confucius also stated that "to get along with friends, one must be true to one's words". In the galaxy of the world nations, we will do what we have said by carrying out President Jiang's statement "mutual trust, mutual benefit, achieving the win-win result and common prosperity", that's China's promise.

FM Spokesman: China to Abide by WTO Rules