BEIJING, March 23: China accused the United States on Thursday of severely undermining the world trade system as tensions between the two nations heated up ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington. The world powers also sparred over the fate of a Chinese researcher for the New York Times who has been in jail for the past 18 months, with the United States calling for his release and China telling Washington not to interfere.
The two sides even found something to argue over in relation to Hu’s trip to the United States next month after the United States appeared to downgrade it by refusing on Wednesday to call it a ‘state visit’.
“It is a state visit,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters on Thursday.
On the trade front — one of the biggest causes of Sino-US friction — China’s ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, Sun Zhenyu, accused the United States of using ‘national security’ as an excuse to not to comply with WTO rulings.
“By interpreting and applying WTO national security clauses in an excessive way, it has again seriously undermined the credibility of the multilateral trade regime,” Xinhua news agency quoted Sun as saying from Geneva.
Sun criticized the United States for recently imposing restrictions on foreign direct investment due to apparent national security concerns.
“These have dealt heavy blows to (WTO) members’ confidence in the business environment of the US,” he said.
Sun’s comments came as two US senators who have threatened sanctions against China for its trade policies were in Beijing.
Democrat Charles Schumer and his Republican colleague Lindsey Graham came to Beijing on Monday after co-sponsoring a bill that would impose tariffs of 27.5 per cent on Chinese imports unless China took steps to strengthen its currency.
The senators have argued that the yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 per cent against the dollar, making US companies uncompetitive against Chinese rivals.
The exchange rate, the senators and other US critics contend, helped to drive up China’s trade surplus with the United States to a record 202 billion dollars last year.
Graham and Schumer told reporters in Beijing on Thursday they were more optimistic about China’s attitude to the yuan after meeting Chinese officials this week but warned more reforms were still needed.
“We are more optimistic than we were when we came here for one important reason... we have seen the Chinese government and people actually have a convergence with the American people on currency,” Schumer said.
“(But) the jury is still out. We will need some concrete signs and movement.”
With the threat of the congressional sanctions looming — Graham and Schumer have said the Senate vote could happen as early as March 31 — China again urged the United States to show restraint.
“We should not resort to pressure, and should not try to politicize, magnify and overstate the issues,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin said.—AFP
