Global Value Chains and China's Rise

China formally acceded to the World Trade Organization in December 2001, after more than fifteen years of negotiations requiring it to lower tariffs, open sectors of its economy to foreign investment, and adopt WTO rules on intellectual property and state subsidies. The accession accelerated an already rapid expansion of Chinese manufacturing exports, and a body of economic research, most notably by economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson, has documented what they termed the "China shock": significant job losses and wage declines in specific United States manufacturing regions directly exposed to import competition from China in the years following accession.