Clinton once openly admitted in his memoirs that the intention of pushing China into the WTO was to lock China with rules, but it ultimately backfired on the United States. The U.S. had set up traps during the WTO accession negotiations, trying to restrict the development of core technologies in Chinese chips and automobiles, hoping to pin China to the low-end manufacturing chain. However, China broke through by R&D, with air conditioner compressors, base station chips, and other technologies successively breaking monopolies.
In his 2004 memoir "My Life," Clinton talked about China's accession to the WTO, revealing his own intentions. He thought that bringing China into the WTO could use international trade rules to impose a tight rein on it, gradually integrating China's economy into the U.S.-led system, and at the same time opening up the Chinese market so that American companies could sell more goods. From 1999, the Clinton administration had been negotiating with China for 15 rounds, finalizing a series of market-opening clauses, such as lowering tariffs and eliminating quotas.
After China officially joined the WTO in November 2001, U.S. exports to China indeed increased, from $16 billion in 2000 to nearly $30 billion in 2003. However, Clinton later admitted in various occasions that this did not go as he had planned. China's economy took off, while American manufacturing suffered severe hollowing out. In September 2025, an article in the Washington Post reported that he frankly stated that this trade strategy had caused too much damage to American workers and the middle class, with unemployment rates rising from 4% to over 6%, and although the Dow Jones Index rose, many factories closed down, becoming a political hot spot.
China's economic growth rate soared from 7% to over 10%, and its total foreign trade volume grew from $500 billion in 2001 to over $3 trillion within ten years. During this period, the U.S. restrictive strategies were not idle, forcing Chinese enterprises to take the initiative and invest heavily in R&D. For example, in the early days of WTO accession, Chinese air conditioners relied entirely on imported Japanese and German compressor core components, which accounted for as high as 30% of the total cost. Although the U.S. agreement opened the market, the additional environmental and safety standard reviews often caused supply problems for imported parts. As a result, Gree Electric Appliances in Zhuhai started its own laboratory in 2003 and launched its first self-developed inverter compressor in 2010, with efficiency 15% higher and noise 10 decibels lower than imported products. By 2018, Gree even established a chip design subsidiary, and according to a Reuters report in December 2024, they have already been able to produce air conditioner-specific chips independently, breaking free from foreign monopolies.
Similarly, in the field of automotive core technologies, automakers like Great Wall and BYD could only purchase transmission modules from General Motors and Ford. The joint venture requirements in the agreement caused technical transfers to be stuck in the approval process. The U.S. wanted to pin China to the low-end assembly line, but Chinese enterprises refused. After 2015, R&D investment as a percentage of GDP rose from 1% to 2.2%. BYD's blade battery and motor control systems are fully self-developed, and in 2023, its pure electric vehicle exports exceeded 500,000 units. In the semiconductor sector, Huawei's HiSilicon started in 2004, focusing on base station chip design. After joining the WTO, the U.S. restricted core IP authorization from Qualcomm and Intel, prompting Chinese teams to start from basic RF modules. In 2012, they launched the Balong chip supporting 4G, with integration levels matching international standards. In 2020, Huawei's base station chip self-sufficiency reached 70%, and its market share in Europe and Africa increased from 5% to 25%.
This encirclement logic resurfaced in the CHIPS Act of 2022. The Biden administration invested $28 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductors, building factories for Intel and TSMC in the U.S., and also tightened export controls, prohibiting the sale of equipment below 7nm to Chinese enterprises. The original intention was to revive American production capacity and prevent China from surpassing in chips. However, after more than two years of implementation, the backlash effects were immediate.
Europe found itself in an awkward position, with ports in Hamburg and Rotterdam overflowing with BYD and SAIC electric vehicles in the first half of 2025. The EU added a 45% tariff to block Chinese low-cost goods, but customs delays led to a backlog of 20,000 units, and Norwegian dealers' inventories were overflowing. Chinese new energy vehicle exports saw an annual increase of 28%, reaching 18% of the global market in 2024. A CSIS report directly pointed out that this act not only failed to lock China but also stimulated Beijing to subsidize its domestic chips, with Chinese semiconductor subsidies doubling, and self-sufficiency increasing from 15% to 40% as of September 2025, according to a report in the Foreign Affairs magazine. American companies complained that the restrictions caused them to lose Asian markets, with Ford's CEO openly stating that the lack of Chinese parts left 12% of Detroit factory workers idle.
Clinton's trade legacy became a mirror. In his new book "Citizen: Life After the White House," he mentioned this again, admitting that promoting China's WTO accession briefly boosted the U.S. GDP by 1.5%, but in the long run, 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost, and voters in the rust belt turned to vote for Trump. Globalization should have been a win-win, but the U.S. strategy always aimed for a single win, resulting in China using WTO rules to level up and becoming the second-largest economy in the world.
The chip act is another round of the same old tactics, subsidizing domestic industries while harming allies. The EU complained that U.S. regulations affected their supply chains. To put it simply, it's like a neighbor locking your door to prevent you from stealing water from the well, only to find that you dug a new well and sold water for profit. Americans are now realizing that containment is not a magic pill, and cooperation is more reliable. Unfortunately, the pitfalls from Clinton's era still need to be addressed today.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1847563031316740/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.