China is right to resist a quick revaluation of its yuan currency, a move that could cost jobs and rock its already rickety financial system, former US commerce secretary Michael Kantor said yesterday.
Addressing a financial forum in Beijing, Kantor's comments came as Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, also in the city, delivered tough words on a ballooning trade imbalance with China.
Evans said the US will restrict imports from China unless American companies are given improved access to the Chinese market.
"The American market will not remain open to Chinese exports indefinitely if the Chinese market is not equally open to US companies and American workers," Evans said in a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing.
"China must move faster by opening markets, dropping ... barriers and letting market forces determine economic decisions," he said.
Many US politicians and manuf-acturers have said China's policy of keeping the yuan pegged at around 8.28 to one dollar gives Chinese exports an unfair price advantage and makes it tough to compete.
Kantor, commerce chief during the Clinton administration and now head of global trade practice at a law firm in Washington, voiced support for China's go-slow approach to freeing up the currency, also called the renminbi.
"A rapid, unplanned revaluation upwards, the inevitable result of floating the renminbi, would increase the burden of renminbi-denominated debt, making the balance sheet problem of Chinese banks and state-owned enterprises harder to correct," Kantor said.
It could also fuel unemployment and drag on China's economy, which could in turn curtail Chinese imports of US products, Kantor said.
"A rapid revaluation of the renminbi is not in the best interests of China, or the best interests of the Asian economy or the best interests of the world economy," he said.
But Evans said China needs to do more to protect intellectual property rights, open up its trading, distribution and financial services sectors to overseas investment, and allow greater access for US farm products.
President George W. Bush says Chinese trade and currency policies are partly to blame for the loss of 2.5 million factory jobs since he took office in 2000.
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