Interaction between regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the multilateral trading system established by the World Trade Organization (WTO) is an issue of significance but nevertheless remains unsettled. This article aims to explore the influence RTAs have generated had on the WTO system, with particular focus on the approach adopted by the adjudicators when dealing with irreconcilable RTA–WTO conflicts. During the development of 20 years’ jurisprudence, WTO adjudicators offered responses to a number of critical questions. On the one hand, direct endorsement of RTA provisions with the effect of prevailing over the counterpart WTO rules appears to be very difficult, either through legal interpretation or application. On the other hand, unlike often being argued, a close review of WTO case law does not reveal a biased adjudicatory approach against regionalism, as compared to other sources of public international law. When dealing with RTA-related matters, the Appellate Body has been advocating an all-encompassing approach featured by the emphasis on the common intention during the interpretative exercise and the promotion for the WTO built-in mechanisms for valid modification. Such an approach is, to a certain extent, misleading in the RTA –WTO context and has led to certain ill-founded adjudicatory choice.

As part of the conditions for WTO accession, China is committed to a number of additional obligations stipulated in the accession documents. This article will mainly focus on the contingent trade instruments in this context, which WTO Members are entitled to take against products of Chinese origin. In this regard, the WTO rules to be examined include the buffering mechanism under Sections 15 and 16 of the Accession Protocol and the textile-specific safeguard mechanism under paragraph 242 of the Working Party Report. The discriminatory and non-beneficial nature of the latter makes it the most unfair component in China's accession. In some cases, these China-only instruments also go against some fundamental WTO principles. For example, revivals of grey-area measures and the bilateral approach are fairly evident therein, which are no longer advocated and even prohibited under the WTO system.