The Trade Implications of Sports Sponsorship and Licensing under China’s WTO Obligations: A Case Study of the Beijing Winter Olympics

Abstract

China’s hosting of the 2022 Winter Olympics became a case which involves both international trade obligations and domestic control over sponsorship and licensing in sports. The following study will therefore seek to assess whether China meets WTO requirements about the GATS and TRIPS agreements. Using documentation analysis, the findings from the case studies and official documents, academic and grey journals, stakeholder reports, it is possible to point out how Chinese law works and note the gap between legal regulation on paper and its enforcement. The result reveals that foreign sponsors faced restricted market access, complicated regulations, and prejudice that seemed to favour domestic companies. While China’s laws are compatible with WTO norms, in practice, it violates these principles through non-tariff measures, transparency, and equal treatment. The Major limitation of the study is that it only used secondary data. Future studies should also yield man-on-the-street interviews augmented by comparisons with other host nations of the Olympics.