US President Barack Obama will meet on Tuesday with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, a US official said on Friday.
US envoy to the UN Susan Rice said the two men would hold bilateral talks next week as world leaders gather for the UN general assembly in New York.
The talks will come as the two nations are embroiled in a row after the US slapped tariffs on Chinese tires.
Washington last week imposed punitive tariffs of 35 percent on Chinese-made tire imports — a move that prompted Beijing to lodge a complaint with the WTO.
WTO chief Pascal Lamy said on Wednesday that Washington’s move was a “matter of concern” that could increase the risk of a “tit-for-tat spillover.”
Beijing charges that Washington’s move violates WTO rules, but Obama has denied that it amounted to protectionism.
Obama and Hu had pledged to resist protectionism when they met in April.
China has warned the US decision would damage trade relations.
“This act by the United States is a clear trade protectionist move that will damage the interests of both China and the United States,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei (何亞非) told reporters in Beijing this week.
“It will do no good for the world economic recovery,” he said.
He declined to respond to a question on whether the trade flap would spoil the atmosphere for next week’s G20 summit in the US.
China’s state-run media has quoted experts saying that 100,000 Chinese jobs could be lost as a result of the US tariffs.
If the row grows bigger, it could strain the symbiotic US-China relationship that accounts for a significant part of the world economy.
China is the biggest holder of US debt, a position reinforced with data released on Wednesday that showed the Asian giant had increased its holdings of US Treasury bonds to US$800.5 billion in July, up from US$776.4 billion in June.
Although a sell-off of the debt would hurt both China and the US, Beijing has recently been voicing fears about the investment, given Washington’s burgeoning budget deficit and the declining value of the US dollar.
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