The WTO, Labor Standards, and the Safeguarding of Laborers' Rights and Interests

China's entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO) signifies that China is making direct connections with the international market economy, blending into the great circle of the international economy at large, and thus becoming part of economic globalization as a whole. Yet, in reality, China has not completed the marketization of its economy, and so, as China becomes a WTO member state, there is bound to be a major collision of the rules of the WTO and the economic and legal relations that exist within China today. In the trend of development of China's economy toward marketization, joining the WTO is an inevitable option stemming from the market reforms that China's economy has undergone. In the short run, however, joining the WTO is likely to intensify some of the economic, social, and legal problems that already beset China's reform process, and questions of safeguarding labor rights as well as issues of labor legislation constitute some of the most prominent problem areas.