By reference to the paradigms of selective adaptation and institutional capacity, this article explores how and to what extent international law such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) rule regime can be interpreted and applied in terms of underlying local norms in the case of China. Through an analysis of treaty compliance issues in the WTO that the United States has negatively viewed, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs), use of law as an instrument of economic and political engineering, industrial policy and forced technology transfer, the author will discuss these issues from a normative perspective of selective adaptation and an operational perspective of institutional capacity. In conclusion, the author argues that the dimensions of selective adaptation and institutional capacity offer useful perspectives to understand treaty compliance in China.