By Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING (Reuters) - World Trade Organization chief Mike Moore said on Thursday he was "very hopeful" China would become a member of the global trading body in the first six months of this year.
"We're very hopeful," he told reporters in Beijing who asked whether China would be able to become a member in the first half.
But Moore said the issue was in the hands of members, such as the European Union and Argentina, with which China has yet to conclude agreements on its entry into the WTO.
"This is very difficult and complex. We can facilitate and encourage and, of course, we are doing that," he said.
"Until China is in it, we are half a world trade organization," Moore said shortly after arriving in Beijing.
His visit comes days before China is to hold talks with the EU on its 13-year bid to join the global trading body.
Moore, fresh from attending a summit of the U.N. trade and development agency UNCTAD in Bangkok, was to meet Premier Zhu Rongji on Thursday.
Moore, who is pushing to get Chinese membership in the WTO as soon as possible, is scheduled to meet Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng on Friday. He leaves on Saturday.
Senior European Commission trade official Hans-Friedrich Beseler and Vice Foreign Trade Minister Long Yongtu are scheduled to hold two days of WTO talks in Beijing from February 21. EU officials say if the talks go well, European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy could come to China soon afterwards to seal a deal.
Key Issues Hold Up Eu Deal
After the last round of talks in Brussels in late January, the EU said it was "on the road to securing a deal" with China but key issues still had to be worked out.
EU officials have declined to specify what issues held up an agreement last month, when the two sides discussed market access for industrial and agricultural goods and services, including telecommunications, financial services and distribution.
Brussels is believed to want to top off or complement market-opening concessions China offered Washington in telecoms and financial services and to seek access for specific European consumer goods not addressed in the China-U.S. accord.
The 15-nation EU is the biggest trade power that has yet to reach an agreement with China to allow it to join the 135-member WTO. The United States, Japan and Canada reached separate agreements with China last year.
The U.S. pact faces a tough fight in Congress. On Wednesday, U.S. lawmakers proposed a special commission to review China's human rights record annually, a move that could bolster support for President Clinton's landmark trade deal with Beijing.
U.S. lawmakers currently get a chance to raise concerns about human rights and labor abuses in China during the annual vote on China's trade status, so-called normal trade relations (NTR).
But Congress would have to give up the annual vote and grant China permanent NTR status under the terms of the trade agreement, which will open Chinese markets and clear the way for Beijing to join the WTO, which sets global trading rules.
Permanent NTR would guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets as products from nearly every other nation.
U.S. labor unions, traditionally allied with Clinton's Democratic Party, have put congressional Democrats on notice that they will pay at the polls in November if they support the China agreement. Union leaders and their allies in Congress want China to improve labor standards before joining the Geneva-based WTO.
Clinton has defended the agreement saying: "This is not a political issue for me; this is a huge national security issue.":
