Greater Uniformity and Centralization : The Regulatory Development of Chinese Food and Product Safety under the WTO

The WTO Agreements emphasize freer trade, which links with diversity, deregulation, and decentralization. China, on the other hand, emphasizes uniformity and centralization especially regarding the political control and the one-party system of ‘democratic dictatorship'. China's joining the WTO, therefore, may be considered as a development that changes the regulatory structure to become more diverse, deregulated, and decentralized. This paper, however, finds the opposite. Under the WTO law, China is encouraged to move towards greater uniformity and centralization with its decentralized and non-uniform settings under the market policy. Moreover, the WTO's uniform and centralized encouragements can be integrating with the rule-by-man framework to increase the administrative and economic power of the Party. It is thus unclear whether China's food and product safety problem can be solved