Foreigners working in China are concerned about whether China can fulfill the commitments it made in joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), Xinhua reporters have found.
Matthew Andersonbian, Asia-Pacific president of Ogilbvy, is among those who expressed such views in interviews with Xinhua prior to the coming annual sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Andersonbian said that enterprises of the world have markedly increased confidence in China following its accession to the WTO. "However, I also noticed that the US government has 15 agencies specially to observe how China abides by its WTO commitments."
The coming annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC, the first to be held following China's WTO entry, will provide a good opportunity for people at home and abroad to observe closely how China reacts to the opportunities and challenges brought by the WTO entry.
Andersonbian noted that foreign enterprises are following closely the development of China's legal framework, because the fundamental requirement of the WTO is to do business in accordance with the rules.
To attract more investors, he said, the Chinese government has to create a sound environment that is transparent and open.
Kim Woodard, chairman of Beijing-based Javelin Investment, said that many foreign business people are expecting China to enhance protection of intellectual property rights, adding this is an issue that needs to be solved urgently.
Woodard, who has been in China for eight years, said that China must see to it that all its existing laws are earnestly enforced and he expressed the hope that China's law-making process will become more transparent. New laws and regulations must be made known to all enterprises, including foreign ones, before they are put into force, he said.
John Smagula, a visiting professor at the Law School of Tsinghua University from the United States, is a lawyer by profession. He suggested that starting this year, China's NPC should pay more attention to WTO-related legislation, adding this will help Chinese laws to meet world standards and enhance the transparency of China's legal framework.
Smagula started learning the Chinese language in high school and had visited China twice - in 1991 and 2000 before coming to work at the law school.
He said the NPC has now a large number of highly competent experts and they can help the NPC to improve its work. He suggested that the different committees of the NPC send people to other countries and learn their experience in lawmaking.
During the interviews, foreign business people also showed their interest in the economic situation and other issues of China.
Graham Patterson, an Australian now teaching English in a university in Beijing, said that he would like to know whether China can have sustained and steady economic growth and whether the Chinese government can meet its targets of economic development.
Rupert Hodgewerf, an investigator of Forbes Global in China, has devoted himself to studying the development of China's private enterprises over the past several years. The 31-year-old Briton said that he hoped to see what policies China will adopt to support the development of the private sector and what measures the state will take to encourage non-state-owned businesses to strengthen internal management at the coming annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC.
Chito, a musician from the Philippines now working in a bar in Beijing, has been in China for four years. He said he has found that more and more Chinese are following the western life style after the WTO entry. But, he said, China should attach importance to its own cultural characteristics and should not completely assimilate itself to western culture.
Kazuya Shimada, director of the ANN-All Nippon News Network Shanghai Bureau, will come to Beijing to cover the NPC annual session next Monday. He said he believed that the Chinese government should make greater efforts in narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor through the annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC.
( March 4, 2002)
