China a 'true believer' in multilateral trade

"We need to persuade the United States, the world's top economy, not to give up on multilateral trade," Zhang said.

"Meanwhile, the future negotiations of multilateral trade agreements should be condensed, as it's hard for the 159 members of the WTO to reach consensus. Topics should be better focused and negotiation targets more accurate," Zhang added.

The Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference will be held in Bali, Indonesia, from Dec 3-6 with expectations of an "early harvest" agreement. This refers to the lowering of tariffs on some products prior to the reaching of a full-fledged trade agreement.

Hong Xiaodong, deputy director-general of the ministry's Department of WTO Affairs, said there is a 50 percent chance for the ministerial conference to achieve the "early harvest" but if the Bali conference doesn't deliver, the WTO's goal of advancing global trade liberalization may be thwarted.

With multilateral trade under the WTO making little progress over the past decade, leading economies are advancing their own regional trade agreements.

Examples of those include the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership advocated by China and Southeast Asian economies.

"The United States is affecting the WTO mechanism with regional frameworks, and it will finally return to the mainstream of the multilateral trade system," predicted Sun Yuanjiang, deputy director-general of the ministry's Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs.

"Even if we wanted to join the TPP, the US surely would say no, as our market fundamentals fall significantly below the high standards of the TPP," Sun said.

He added that the quality of China's 12 FTAs "is very low". Big economic powers, such as the US, the European Union and even India, are unwilling to establish FTAs with China. Some that were recently reached cut tariffs to some extent but made little progress on investment rules, services or other new issues.

Sun said regional FTAs will boost domestic reforms but only if they are high-level ones. Xue suggested a comprehensive opening-up in China based on the WTO rules.