US taking `holistic' view at Beijing currency talks

US Treasury Secretary John Snow will press Chinese leaders for more than just currency reform during high-level talks in China from next week, a senior US official said on Friday.

Tim Adams, Snow's deputy for international affairs, said the US wants also for China to move away from export-led growth and to upgrade speedily its financial services industry.

"So we take a holistic view in our approach to China, not just one particular aspect," the undersecretary told reporters before leaving with Snow this weekend on a 10-day tour of Japan and China.

"It's just that one particular aspect seems to get greater attention than the other two, but the other two are just as important," Adams said.

Snow expected to lay out a compendium of demands for trade and exchange rate reforms in China at annual talks of the Sino-US Joint Economic Commission (JEC) the following weekend.

While recent steps by China to relax its currency, the US administration says the yuan remains undervalued against the dollar -- at the cost, it complains, of millions of US jobs lost to cheap Chinese imports.

Adams the US has a three-pronged approach to its economic relations with China, "the exchange rate being just one element".

The second element was "working with the Chinese so that they shift away from an export-led strategy to one that's more focussed on consumption and domestic demand," he said.

"And the third leg is the development of the financial service sector and the important role that US financial service firms can play in that development," he said.

Snow, who will meet senior Chinese officials including Finance Minister Jin Renqing (金人慶) at the JEC meeting, has been waging quiet diplomacy for change in China while fending off pressure in Congress for a much tougher approach.

In advance of his trip, the Treasury postponed the release of a twice-yearly report on global currency policies that many in Congress say should label China a "manipulator" of its exchange rate -- opening up the threat of US sanctions.

The report was due for release on Oct. 15, but will now come out in early November. Adams said the postponement was a logical step pending the outcome of Snow's talks in Beijing.