In its Protocol on Accession to the WTO, China has made a commitment to the legalization of its administrative licensing procedures. This means that China will bring its administrative licensing procedures into the orbit of the administrative rule of law and use the law to regulate and adjust acts of administrative licensing. However, due to the weakness of the theory on administrative licensing, up to now China has still not been able to adopt a law on administrative licensing, although the drafting of the law started as early as in the middle of 1990s, and the current reform on administrative licensing is mainly carried out by administrative means. Therefore, it is imperative for China to transform administrative licensing from an administrative procedure to a legal procedure. The key to this transformation is imposing administrative law restraints on administrative licensing. |