China’s efforts to join the World Trade Organization (WTO)
lasted 15 years. On December 11th, 2001, China officially joined WTO. China “blossomed into the world's greatest exporter and
second-biggest importer” (The Economist). Unfortunately, China is no longer very favorable as a member of the WTO due
to their high levels of exporting goods and high levels of “essential imputs”. Although
China agreed to stop taxing their exports, Bradsher’s use of
tone and diction further explains why China only thinks of benefiting themselves when it comes to
trading with other countries.
China is under the accusation that they are using export taxes
and quotas to force international chemical companies and other businesses to
move their factories to China in order for China to get their hands on more of the rare earth resources. Throughout
this article, I found Bradsher’s tone to be very calm towards both China and W.T.O. Bradsher includes multiple references to The
Appellate Body and how they felt about W.T.O. handling China violating the free trade rules. They felt the “panel had
gone too far” (Bradsher 1) with the way everything was taken into account. On
the other hand, Bradsher’s tone remained calm when addressing that China needs W.T.O. in order to get access to the “foreign
markets”. Bradsher could have easily made China look needy and desperate but he refrained from doing
that. Along with Bradsher’s calm tone he also used calm diction when informing
his audience of the issues going on with W.T.O and China.
When first
reading the different vocabulary, you can easily mistake it for negativity.
That’s why the tone is so important; it allows the reader to make the diction
sound a different way. For instance, “Mr. Bacchus predicted that China” would follow the W.T.O.’s ruling, in which they did. Beijing has a big reputation for “adhering to adverse” W.T.O.
decisions. Those two words may sound very serious and scary but they really aren’t,
especially if you apply the author’s calm tone. When Bradsher is talking about
the rare earth metals, he calls them “crucial”. Crucial has negative
connotations to go along with it but the way Bradsher is using it; he is
describing the natural source’s importance.
Tone and Diction
tie very closely with each other. One can actually determine the other and that
is exactly what Bradsher did in this article. When it comes to trading, China is only looking out for their best interest. W.T.O. got
them to change their policy and follow the free trade rules. Bradsher made sure
that he wasn’t leaning in favor of one side but fairly covered the issues on
both sides. Bradsher’s tone and diction made it clear of what took place during
the trade case with China.
WORK CITED
"WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATION." WTO. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/countries_e/china_e.htm>.
Briana, this is a solid post. You are navigating the balance between the author's claims and how he makes them--not an easy feat--but you're doing a solid job of it. Make sure that when you discuss tone and diction you focus entirely on how it's being used in this text (you don't need to define the terms, etc) and how the tone supports the claims or creates the balance between points of view.
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