Benefits and Challenges at the same time
Join IBOs could bring different effects to businesses and member countries. From one hand, IBOs give business a good platform that would allow them to match resources globally. From another hand, Join IBOs could also put more constraints and extreme competition to developing businesses and member countries. The best example to explain this conflicts will be China, as a member, in the WTO organization. Since China got the membership of WTO in the early 2000s, it has been a big boost to the country’s economy. WTO built bridges for products from all over the world to China, at the same time, China also traded with many international markets. Because of China’s relatively low labor cost and less authorization cost, its products are cheaper, various and widely accepted by the global market. After China joining the WTO, the amount of its export amount has been consistently growing, until 2013, it surpassed the US became the biggest trading economy. However, China has also been criticizing violating rules of WTO. “No complete legal protection for labor; Protectionism for specific industries; disrespect to foreign intellectual properties.” These all are complaints that from other WTO members. The tax adjustment started by the US recently, clearly put pressure on China and other businesses or countries which supply chain has China involved. Importantly, all the complaints and appeals are submitted under the rule of WTO, from a broad perspective, an understanding of what is fair activities under the WTO’s system.
Internal politics and interest representation
Who is the biggest influencer of IBOs? What are guidelines for the interest allocation of IBOs? The answer is, there are always battles ongoing, IBOs are working on balancing different interests between different groups all the time. Let’s still use China as an example. Since joining the WTO, China’s attitude shifted from a senior member to an important role. China participated in appeal solving procedure for more than 80 times. What does this number mean? It means China contributed its opinion for its own or someone else’ interest for more than 80 times. Even there is no direct payback from the member that China supported. However, participation increased China’s influence in WTO. Later on, China became a leading force in global trade and cooperation. More and more members start to choose China as their partner, the group surrounding China started to get more interest. This phenomenon shows that IBOs aren’t only permanent rules or sets of bureaucracy, but also a good communication channel that allows economies and businesses to find their common interest then maximize it.