US vows to keep up pressure on China: Unfair trade practices
XIANGHE, Dec 13: The United States vowed on Thursday to maintain pressure on China over alleged unfair trade practices, as the world powers wrapped up two days of tense economic talks.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who urged China at the start of their Strategic Economic Dialogue on Wednesday to let its yuan currency rise, said the United States would continue to press Beijing on the issue.
“China isn’t ready to have a market-determined currency yet but they need to move in that direction and they’re going to continue to hear about it until they get a market-determined currency,” he told reporters at the close of the talks outside Beijing.
Earlier on Thursday, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said Washington would continue to haul China before the World Trade Organisation in commercial disputes, despite Chinese warnings that such moves threatened economic ties.
“If we are unable to resolve disputes through negotiations, then we will absolutely protect our rights under our trade agreements,” Schwab said, referring to the WTO option.
The leader of the Chinese delegation, Vice Premier Wu Yi, has cautioned the United States against “politicising” trade issues and took exception to recent US cases against China filed with the WTO.
However, the two giants both declared the meeting a success after warning each other that rising economic protectionism on both sides could harm one of the world’s key trading relationships.
Paulson called the meeting “constructive,” while Wu said it was a “complete success.”
The US delegation said Beijing had agreed to allow foreign companies to issue yuan-denominated securities in China, one of a handful of market-opening concessions won from the Chinese.
They also announced several bilateral agreements to cooperate on climate change and energy issues and to combat illegal logging, according to a statement released by the US side.
But though the two sides sounded a positive note, the meeting was marked mostly by prickly exchanges over the yuan and other issues.
Critics in the US say an artificially weak yuan gives Chinese exports an unfair advantage on world markets.
But China’s vice minister of commerce, Chen Deming, responded to Paulson’s call for a stronger yuan by saying a weakening US dollar was a bigger global economic concern.
“The yuan is not the key issue. Currently my focus is more on the depreciation of the US dollar and its possible impact and repercussions for the world economy,” Chen told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of the conference.
The US trade gap with China soared 9.1 per cent in October from a year earlier to $25.9bn, the US government said Wednesday, though imports from China hit an unprecedented $31.6bn.
The underlying trade tension simmered into Thursday, with Schwab saying the United States had complained to China about a reported suspension of US movie imports.
“If true... that would be very serious indeed and that would be an issue we would continue to push very hard on,” she said.
US entertainment industry journal Variety last week quoted Chinese sources as saying a ban on all foreign movies would begin on Saturday and last at least three months.
Schwab said the US side was yet to confirm the ban. China allows just 20 foreign films to be shown in the country’s cinemas each year.—AFP
