Shi Guangsheng

Early Life and Career in the Foreign Trade System

Shi Guangsheng was born in September 1939 in Changli county, Hebei province. In 1965 he graduated from the French-language programme of the foreign trade department at the Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade (now the University of International Business and Economics), and was subsequently posted to the commercial section of the Chinese embassy in Mali, and later to that of the Chinese embassy in Belgium. After returning to China in 1974 he joined the China National Metals and Minerals Import and Export Corporation, rising through positions including clerk, deputy division chief, and deputy general manager. From May 1993 to March 1998 he served as Vice Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and China's WTO Accession Negotiations

In March 1998, Shi Guangsheng succeeded Wu Yi as Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and Party Secretary of its Party Group, just as China's WTO accession negotiations entered their final, most difficult stage. He personally led and took part in numerous rounds of bilateral market-access talks with China's major trading partners, including the United States and the European Union; the negotiations with the United States were widely regarded as the single most difficult stretch of the entire accession process. Because of the sheer number of agreements and protocols he signed over the course of the talks, he was later described in the Chinese press as "the person who signed the most documents in China's WTO accession negotiations."

Signing the Accession Protocol

On 11 November 2001, Shi Guangsheng signed the Protocol on the Accession of the People's Republic of China to the WTO on behalf of the Chinese government, at the WTO's Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, completing the final legal procedure for China's accession. Thirty days later, on 11 December 2001, China formally became the WTO's 143rd member.

Later Positions

In March 2003, as part of a State Council institutional restructuring, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation was merged into the newly created Ministry of Commerce, ending Shi's tenure as minister. He subsequently became a member of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People's Congress and Vice Chairman of its Finance and Economic Affairs Committee, and also served as Honorary President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies and Honorary President of the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment.