MANILA, Oct 18: Despite a personal appeal from President George W. Bush, the US administration held out little hope of winning concessions on Sunday from Chinese President Hu Jintao to begin moving the Asian giant towards a free-floating currency.

Bush was to meet Hu in Bangkok before attending the October 20-21 summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

In addition to the currency dispute, Bush and Hu were due to discuss the nuclear standoff with North Korea.

The president is making it clear to the Chinese that we need progress on this, that we’ve got to see the Chinese moving towards a free-floating exchange rate, a senior Bush administration official told reporters in Manila on the eve of the talks.

But the official acknowledged: Are we going to get it tomorrow? Probably not.

Bush has come under pressure from US manufacturers — a critical base of support in the run-up to next year’s presidential election — and members of Congress to get China as well as Japan to stop trying to weaken their currencies.

In China’s case, the administration wants Beijing to loosen its currency regime, in which the yuan is pegged to the dollar. US officials argue that the fixed peg renders Chinese exports cheaper, making it hard for American companies to compete.

Japan’s currency floats freely but its central bank intervenes in the foreign exchange market. Bush has made clear his preference for less intervention by Japanese authorities to weaken the yen against the dollar.

But Bush appeared to make little progress on the issue in talks on Friday with Japan’s prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi. Koizumi made no commitments on currencies and said steps were needed to counter exchange rate volatility, US and Japanese officials said.

Bush is now turning his focus to China, which has for months steadfastly rebuffed US pressure to revalue its currency.

We’re going to keep the pressure (on Hu) and keep on steering him towards allowing the market to determine the value of the Chinese yuan, the official said.

Is he (Bush) putting pressure on him (Hu)? Sure. We’re putting pressure on him to try to move him to that goal...

China itself says that, ultimately, it wants to move towards a free floating exchange rate. They say that is the goal. So now I guess we’re just quibbling over the time frame.—Reuters