Digging in for difficult trade negotiations with China, Clinton administration officials said yesterday they would not make concessions or scale back US demands for access to Chinese markets in order to bring Beijing into the World Trade Organization this year.
To join the WTO, China must win US support, as well as the backing of the EU and others. The deadline for China's accession is widely seen as late November, when WTO ministers launch the next round of global trade talks in Seattle. Any delay could leave China shut out of the WTO for years.
But so far US and Chinese negotiators have been hard-pressed to settle their differences over US access to the vast Chinese market.
"I can't point to any specific progress, except to say that I think we have reestablished contact in a meaningful way," US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky told reporters, referring to her two-hour meeting on Monday with Chinese Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng.
Barshefsky said the onus was largely on Beijing to close the gap in trade talks with Washington if Chinese leaders still hoped to join the WTO this year and win guaranteed access to US markets through permanent Normal Trade Relations (NTR) status, which requires congressional approval.
Asked whether Washington was willing to make concessions to strike a quick pact, Barshefsky told reporters: "No. We've been very direct with China as to what is needed in order to help garner permanent NTR in the United States. That remains our position, there is no change."
US and Chinese trade negotiators were expected to meet again in October.
But key US lawmakers and business leaders were increasingly pessimistic that an agreement would be reached any time soon. "I don't expect there to be a deal this year. In fact, I don't expect there to be a deal for some time," said John Foarde, vice-president of the U.S.-China Business Council.
The United States wants China to recommit to the market-opening concessions made by Premier Zhu Rongji during a state visit to Washington in April. They included unprecedented tariff cuts and increased access in areas such as agriculture, telecommunications and financial services.
President Bill Clinton rebuffed the offer in hope of wringing additional concessions out of Beijing to open China's financial and banking sectors, and to improve safeguards against surges in Chinese exports of steel and textiles.
But Beijing, in the aftermath of NATO's bombing of its embassy in Belgrade in May, has balked at US demands for more market-opening measures, and has made clear that the package publicized by the US in April was open to renegotiation.
Senior Clinton administration officials have warned Beijing against backtracking, since it would outrage business groups and their allies in the Republican-controlled Congress.
"If you begin to subtract things...that just makes it harder and longer before you see a conclusion to this," Commerce Secretary William Daley said.
Congressional support for a trade pact is critical because Clinton would have to convince lawmakers to grant China permanent most-favoured nation trade status, which the US now refers to as NTR.
Currently, China's NTR status, which gives its goods the same low tariff access to U.S. markets as nearly every other nation, is renewed annually.
But even if US and Chinese negotiators were to reach quick agreement, key US lawmakers said Congress was unlikely to support permanent NTR this year because of its busy schedule, lawmakers' concerns about the trade deficit with China and allegations that Beijing stole US nuclear secrets.
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