Assessing the WTO Agreements on China's Telecommunications Regulatory Reform and Industrial Liberalization*

Bing Zhang
(School of Public Policy and Management, The Ohio State University)

[Abstract]
By drawing on the new institutional economics, this paper presents the hypothesis that the rules-of-law specified by the World Trade Organization (WTO), as an exogenous institution for the Member States, theoretically will shape the Members' domestic telecommunications regulatory institutions somewhat, but that the actual effects will be different and will depend on the institutional endowments of host countries and their institutional stances. Empirically, this paper tests this hypothesis by examining the impact of China's prospective membership status in the WTO on its telecommunications regulatory reform and industrial liberalization and explores the institutional barriers for China to fully implement the WTO Agreements in this sector.