Research On The Import And Distribution System Under The WTO

For foreign investors, the Chinese publication market undoubtedly has great appeal. After China's accession to the WTO, the United States, Japan and other countries all would like to establish their own import and distribution channels in China. However, for the protection of domestic industries and public moral, domestic laws and regulations have limited the investigations of foreign investors in certain publications and audiovisual entertainment products, leading to the dispute between China and the United States. This dissertation focuses on the dispute about publications, investigating the conflicts between domestic regulations and the rules of the WTO.Chapter one talks about the WTO rules regarding import and distribution of publications. The import of publications mainly relates to the rules for trade in goods. Since China has made commitments regarding publication import in the Accession Protocol and the Working Party Report, which are parts of GATT 1994, the violation of the commitments would be taken as a violation of the WTO.The distribution of publications mainly concerns with the rules for trade in service. One of the significant characters of GATS is that it divides the obligations of the members into two parts, the general commitments and the specific commitments. The specific commitments are confirmed in China's Schedule,and reflected in Market Access and National Treatment. China has undertaken national treatment commitment with respect to the wholesale of reading materials, including imported reading materials. Also, One of the requirements of GATT 1994 is that while sailing in China, goods from other members deserve national treatment, so if China limit the distribution of publications, it would possibly violate the WTO.Chapter two talks about the conflicts between regulations concerning publication importation and China's trading rights commitments. Publications Regulation and some other regulations have made restrictions on the nature of import entity, so except solely state owned enterprises, no other companies would be able to import publications. This is a conflict with China's commitment of trading rights. China has pled with the reason "necessity for the protection of public moral". The penal confirmed legitimate for China to protect public moral, but did not approve the solely state owned standard.Chapter three talks about the conflicts between regulations concerning publication distribution and national treatment requirement in GATS and GATT. According to the regulations of China, in a serial of distribution services--master distribution, wholesale and retail, foreign investors could only take part in wholesale and retail, and there are several restrictions like minimum registered capital and operating period. All these restrictions have violated the commitments that China has made in China's Schedule.Also, the restrictions on subscription of imported newspaper and journals violate the national treatment requirement in GATT 1994.The final chapter is about the influence of the case. The fourteen months of execution has ended on March 19th, 2011. During the period, China has revised some of the regulations that violated the trading right commitment, GATT1994 and GATS. This dissertation will compare the revisions of the regulations and make proposals for the regulations that have not been revised. Meanwhile, this dissertation also makes recommendations about the modification of China's Schedule.