ing member of the World Trade Organization, the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the body that is intended to promote global free trade by lowering tariffs and other barriers, which will be formally constituted on January 1, 1994. (Gargan 14) The specific nature of the United States' complaint has to do with China's pirating of musical compact disks, video laser disks and computer software. In fact, it is estimated that such pirating costs American companies a billion dollars a year. This phenomenon seems to have to do with the Chinese psychology as described by Nathan. In his 1981 essay he noted that China did not wish to become a "technological client of the west. The preferred solution is to buy one item and copy it" (Nathan 52). Clearly, this is not the way trade works today. It is the United States' position that China must adhere to the rules of trade before it can be included in a trade organization. Needless to say, exclusion from WTO would be disastrous for any country, but particularly for an emerging market such as China. Even on a day to day basis, China's economic leaders seem unable to understand how some aspects of a market economy work. In discussing the status of the Shanghai Stock Market, for example, one stock dealer referred to it as "crazy" ("Stocks Surge" D2). Moreover, American analysts have been amazed to discover in the Shanghai market "the lack of regulation and the poor disclosure requirements. Some companies have been listed for two or three years and have not issued an annual report" (Hansell, D2). It is no wonder that Chinese investors become anxious about their investments. The issuance of shares in the Shandong Huaneng Power Development Company also demonstrates the lack of expertise on the part of the Chinese in the modern world market. In fact, according to one Hong Kong investment analyst, "'the company wasn't really a company. It was just a bunch of discrete plants that they...
