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The roots of opposition are tied to the very beginnings of reform. In 1978, China had no foreign investment and very little trade. Contrast that with the present, where China has been the largest recipient of direct foreign investment in the developing world since 1992 and is among the top ten trading countries in the world. (3) Although the reforms that opened China to international markets were gradual, by the mid-1990s foreign invested enterprises began to gain serious market share. Coca Cola and Pepsi had basically taken over the entire soft drink market in China, and the presence of others like Procter & Gamble and Volkswagen was ubiquitous with products and advertising. In addition, multinationals looked invincible and overpowering. Some popular examples were that Microsoft's capitalization was one and a half times the size of both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchange put together, and Wal-Mart's annual sales represented forty percent of China's total sales revenue (Wang, 2000, pp. 60, 62). Two sides of the debate emerged at this time. (4) One side argued that China was relying too much on foreign investment and that development of the domestic, national economy should be the priority. The other side argued that in fact China still had too little foreign investment, and that more liberalization was required to insure progress. The Asia crisis in 1997 gave the national economy advocates the upper hand. By 1998 it looked as if China would stop pushing so hard for WTO membership and focus on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and other regional organizations instead. (Hai, 1998)

A year later everything changed. Zhu Rongji arrived in Washington in April, 1999, with a surprisingly concessionary package designed to pave the way for a U.S. blessing on China's membership. We still do not have a full understanding of the internal bargaining that allowed for such a serious renewed push to join WTO. However, there are a number of factors, both economic and political, that probably played a role in tipping the scales back toward membership. (5)