China has strengthened its courts, promoted transpar-ent and democratic institutions, and increased citizen participation in government since it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).

• To comply with the WTO, China has issued regulations to increase transparency and citizen participation in the policy and rulemaking process.
• Local courts must enforce China’s commitments under international trade agreements.
• China is unifying standards for domestic and foreign goods and bring-ing its certification and accreditation procedures into compliance with WTO and international practice.
• China implemented more than 2,000 anticorruption laws over the past five years.
• China is amending its constitution to provide protection for the private property of citizens, privately owned businesses and nonstate-owned companies.
• The leader of China’s Communist Party, Hu Jintao, has called for increased participation by citizens in the political process, democracy and the rule of law, and he strongly encourages the continued devel-opment of a sound legal system that addresses property rights, stable business environments, credit and social security.China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is not the cause of the U.S. trade deficit with China.

Increased trade and investment in China has raised standards of living, empowered citizens and promoted human rights.

• By raising standards of living, free trade nurtures the emergence of a middle class and strengthens civil institutions.
• Chinese citizens enjoy more freedom and better access to information than they did before China joined the WTO. For example, there were about 68 million Internet users in China by 2003 (up from only 7 million in 1999), putting China second behind the United States in terms of people online.
• The government has proposed a groundbreaking constitutional amend-ment to include human rights in the Chinese constitution.