US officials in China for trade talks could be forgiven for doubting Beijing’s claims it is doing all it can to stamp out piracy. Especially if they happened to spot an “Amornini” store in the hotel hosting the talks.
The clothing store, whose bird logo closely resembles that of Italian fashion house Giorgio Armani, is just meters away from the hotel conference center where top US and Chinese officials were holding their annual trade talks yesterday.
The expensive-looking shop, along with others in the Jinjiang Hotel in the southwestern city of Chengdu, is closed because of security for the senior US and Chinese officials attending the two-day talks, which began on Sunday.
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan (王岐山), China’s top official on financial affairs, told the meeting that China had made “positive progress” addressing US concerns, which include piracy, market access and the value of the yuan.
A spokeswoman for the US government delegation — led by US Secretary of Commerce John Bryson and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk — did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the store.
However, it underscores the challenges faced by the thousands of foreign companies struggling to protect their intellectual property rights in a country where such laws are blatantly ignored — even under the noses of senior officials.
The atmosphere at the talks in the city of Chengdu is expected to be frosty as US lawmakers, under pressure to spur jobs growth as they enter an election year, heap blame on Chinese policies for their own economic woes.
Bryson demanded “concrete results” from the meeting of the US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, while Wang warned the US side against politicizing economic issues.
“Many in the US, including the business community and the [US] Congress, are moving towards a more negative view on our trading relationship,” Bryson said during the two-day talks, which began on Sunday. “We must produce concrete, meaningful results in areas including improving protection of intellectual property rights, non-discriminatory innovation policies and additional opportunities for American investors.”
Bryson’s comments echoed those of US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who earlier said China and the US needed to “demonstrate to our constituents that we can and do solve problems” during the annual meeting.
Wang said China had made “positive progress” addressing US concerns and called on the US to “avoid politicization of economic issues” — a thinly veiled reference to recent strident US criticism of Beijing’s currency policy.
“An unbalanced recovery is better than a balanced recession,” Wang said, referring to the turbulence in Europe and the US that threatens to tip the global economic recovery into reverse.
Wang said he hoped the US side would “make substantive progress” in relaxing controls on high-tech exports to China and “exercise caution” in taking action against Chinese shipments, a key driver of the world’s second-largest economy.
He also called on the US to ensure a level playing-field for Chinese companies investing in the world’s only economic superpower.
Wang’s comments came after he warned on Saturday that China needed to resolve “structural problems” in its financial system to cope with a sustained global recession that threatened its export-dependent economy.
“The one thing we can be sure of is that the global economic recession will last for a long time,” Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
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