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U.S.-China Textile Trade: An Introduction, C. Donald Johnson

Scholarly Works

In the spring of 1999, the Office of United States Trade Representative (USTR) in the Clinton administration was heavily engaged in completing the negotiations on the terms of China's accession agreement to becoming a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Chinese Premier at the time, Zhu Rongji, was scheduled to visit Washington in April, which created an "action forcing event" to complete the agreement for a signing ceremony with President Bill Clinton. After nearly fifteen years of negotiations the end appeared to be near, but several critical issues remained unresolved--including the highly-charged political issue of textiles.