China's entry to WTO: global marketing issues, impact, and implications for China

The transition from a command economy to a market‐based economy has been remarkably successful in China. After 15 years of negotiations, China finally joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001. Because of trade and investment liberalization under the WTO, there will be greater competition between Chinese and foreign firms, both inside China and outside China. While there is a great deal of economic literature on China's entry to the WTO, there has been no research on the global marketing impact and implications of China's membership of the WTO. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap. The objective of this study is to examine the general impact of China's entry to the WTO and to assess the global marketing implications of specific trade‐related policy issues within the WTO framework for China. Eleven specific WTO policy issues are examined and several global marketing propositions offered in terms of the WTO's impact on and implications for China.