Bert Hofman: Western countries often forget their own history

Editor's note: This year marks the 20th anniversary of China's accession to the WTO. On the afternoon of November 10, 2001, the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, unanimously adopted China's decision to enter the WTO. One month later, China acceded to the WTO, becoming its 143rd member. How did China's WTO entry benefit global growth? What is China's role in upholding multilateral trading system? How to create a better global trading system based on WTO? GDToday & Newsgd.com invited global experts to share insights on "China's 20 years in the WTO".

"It was a very tough time for China," said Bert Hofman, director of the East Asian Institute at National University of Singapore and former World Bank Country Director for China, while recalling China's accession to the World Trade Organization.

It took China 15 years to become a member of the WTO. Since its accession, China integrated itself with the world economy through reform and opening-up.

Hofman spoke highly of China's achievements over the past 20 years, impressed by the high growth of the economy, vitality in the employment market and the eradication of extreme poverty. "That is a fantastic achievement to make that transition from a very planned economy to a much more market-based, much more open economy," said Hofman.

"China has clearly been trying to be as open as possible. The RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) was a clear sign of that", he added.

However, during the WTO's 8th review of China's trade policy in October this year, the US Deputy Permanent Representative to the WTO David Bisbee made an accusation that China took advantage of "the imprimatur of WTO membership to become the WTO's largest trader", while undermining global trading system through its "harmful industrial policies".

Hofman revealed the hypocrisy of such speech by pointing out that "western countries often seem to forget their own history. A lot of the developmental success of western countries comes also from a fairly strong state involvement".

He suggested that the world's major powers should shift their focus from negative competition to positive competition where they can compete on offering more vaccines or more funds for infrastructure to developing countries.

"There are lots of opportunities to cooperate and not just compete," said Hofman. "I'm convinced that there is enough common ground to have a functioning international order that we don't have to go back to basically a split international order as we had during the Cold War."

Reporter | Lydia Liu

Video script | Lydia Liu, Keane

Video editor | Axin

Graphic design | Mia

Editor | Wing, Jerry