State Capitalism in the GATT/WTO Legal Order.

The article focuses on the challenges that state capitalism, exemplified by China's economic model, poses to the multilateral trading system established under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO). Originally designed by Western liberal democracies to regulate trade among market economies, the GATT/WTO framework contains limited and outdated disciplines on state intervention, particularly regarding subsidies, state-trading enterprises (STEs), and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The accession of state capitalist economies, especially China since 2000, has exposed gaps in WTO rules, prompting calls for reform—especially of the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM)—to better address subsidies and the role of SOEs. The article suggests that a plurilateral negotiation involving major players like China, the EU, and the USA, supported by enhanced transparency and a dedicated WTO working party on SOEs, is necessary to reconcile state capitalism with the WTO's liberal trade principles and ensure the system's future viability.