China's recent entry into the WTO will push its enterprises to compete with their foreign counterparts on an equal footing, thus compelling Chinese companies to upgrade their manufacturing technology, including environmental control technology. Those Chinese companies, failing to upgrade their environmental control technology to higher standards, may be exposed to non-tariff barriers by manufactures from developed countries.

This should help elevate the current technological level of the environmental protection industry in China to more developed countries standards. The Chinese government has already started taking steps to educate Chinese companies on international standards, to help reduce unfair treatment in international trade, for failing to abide by the standards.

Under the China-US WTO agreement, tariffs will be reduced on US environmental products and equipment, making them more competitive. This, coupled with the fact that US environment technology is rated as some of best in the world, will help create even more opportunities for US environmental companies to sell their technology in China.