China was admitted to the World Trade Organization(WTO) on almost 22 years ago on Dec 11, 2001. It took 15 years of negotiations for China to be admitted as a full member. According to Mathias Dopfner, CEO of Axel Partners and author of the book “The Trade Trap: How to Stop Doing Business with Dictators”, it was a great day for China. He also mentioned that possibly the biggest mistake for Western economies.

It is in fact true since it led to Chinese economy soaring making the country as one of the largest economies in the world. It helped China’s market socialist economy bring up millions of Chinese citizens from poverty to middle-class. On the other hand, millions of workers in the developed world lost their jobs as manufacturing jobs moved to China. As a result, the majority of jobs in these countries today are in the service sectors.

Since China’s entry into WTO, the U.S. share of global GDP has declined from 31.47% in 2001 to 24.15%. China’s share of global GDP has grown from 3.98% to 18% in the same period.