China's Publishing Science Research Institute, which has been engaged in the research on impacts from China's WTO entry since 1997, pointed out that the country's periodicals sector will encounter impacts in three aspects - market access, tariff and intellectual property protection.

Market access to the periodical sector concerns publishing access and distribution access. The WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Service governing trade in services stipulates that member states decide the opening level of services, including publishing, through negotiations. Since periodicals embody ideology, the Chinese government stays cautious in WTO negotiations and may not promise to fully open this sector. Therefore, after China joins the WTO, the government will still maintain its strict control on market access to the periodical sector and will not allow foreign and private investors to independently launch periodicals in China. However, more foreign capital will flow into China and distribution channels of periodicals will become more diversified after China's WTO entry.

"Tariff" refers to a tax levied on a commodity imported from another country. It earns revenues for the government and regarded as instruments to promote local industries by taxing their competitors. The benefit is accorded to the local producers by the maintenance of a domestic price at a level equal to the world price plus the tariff. Reduction of import tariff will negatively affect domestic production and sales of products of the kind. For periodicals, China's current import tariff is zero, so there's little possibility of big inflow of foreign periodicals after the WTO entry. However, the demand for high-quality periodicals will increase with more foreign visitors to China and import of various foreign periodicals will rise accordingly. But due to high prices and language barriers, the demand for foreign periodicals will be limited, and will not bring about many impacts on China's periodical market. If properly positioned and with good quality, Chinese periodicals might attract some foreign consumers.

China has made great achievements in protecting foreign copyrights since the country implemented the Copyright Law and gained membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is also worth noting that the book publishing enjoys better protection than the periodical publishing, and unauthorized translation and publishing of foreign works nearly disappear in China. However, involving numerous writers and being more up-to-date, periodicals are more poised to be translated, edited and re-published without authorization. After China joins the WTO, the publishing industry has to comply with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), requiring better protection of foreign copyrights on the one hand, and facilitating foreign supervision on the Chinese market. This will impact domestic periodical sector. In addition, the opening up of telecommunications market, which is closely connected with online periodicals, will pose certain threats to traditional periodicals.

(Source: abc88.com)