US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez yesterday warned China that its failure to keep market opening promises is fueling US protectionist sentiment despite a delay in a vote on proposed sanctions against Chinese imports.
The warning comes ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) trip to Washington next month.
Gutierrez, in a speech to US businesspeople, appealed to Chinese leaders to help fight efforts to restrict trade, saying Beijing must do more to open its markets and stop rampant product piracy.
PHOTO: EPA
"There is a real protectionist and isolationist sentiment creeping up, emerging in our country. That is not good" for trade relations, he said.
Gutierrez met this week with Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), China's top economic official, Commerce Minister Bo Xilai (薄熙來), and others.
He wouldn't give details of their talks but said earlier he would bring up market access, product piracy and complaints about China's exchange-rate controls.
On Tuesday in Washington, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, proposed a law pushing the Bush administration to act more aggressively on China's currency policy.
Washington and Beijing have jousted for months over China's reluctance to let the yuan trade freely in financial markets, which many in Congress say keeps its exports artificially cheap.
On Tuesday two other US senators -- New York Democrat Charles Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham -- said they would defer a vote on their separate bill threatening a 27.5 percent duty on Chinese imports. They said their recent trip to China had left them more encouraged that Beijing would reform its currency rules.
Gutierrez said he was unfamiliar with the Grassley-Baucus bill but repeatedly warned against rising protectionist rancor aimed at China, while urging Beijing to address US complaints.
"All that we have done together can be put at risk by rising the level of trade tension in the US government," Gutierrez told US business executives in Beijing.
Gutierrez declined to comment on whether Washington would back EU moves to complain to the WTO about Chinese policies on auto component imports.
But he said Chinese efforts to subsidize local industries, promote home-grown security standards for wireless computer networks, and restrict multinationals' access to government purchasing programs were straining trade ties.
"Our companies still don't have the access that they were promised under the terms of China's WTO entry," he told a gathering of US business executives yesterday, referring to Beijing's joining the WTO in 2001.
"The bottom line is that our companies still don't have the access they were promised," he said.
But during Gutierrez's visit, senior Chinese officials rejected the main US complaint that China's currency and trade policies had created the two countries' trade gap.
Bo told Gutierrez on Tuesday that China was not to blame for the gap, which he said was the outcome of broader global economic shifts, according to a report on his ministry's Web site.
"A considerable amount of Chinese exports to the United States comes from US companies who have invested in China," Bo told him.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,