Chinese Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) criticized a US proposal for sectors to be closed to foreign investment under a Bilateral Investment Treaty that is currently being negotiated between Washington and Beijing, Chinese media reported.
Lou said that the US’ negative list, while outlining prohibitions on key infrastructure, technology and national security investment, failed to provide specific definitions over its restrictions, the Xinhua news agency reported.
“The stipulation increases the uncertainty for Chinese investors in the United States and make us feel very uncomfortable,” Lou said, without elaborating.
He was speaking in Washington on the sidelines of World Bank and IMF meetings.
Negative lists are a pivotal element in negotiations between China and the US to conclude the treaty.
Last month, US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew said it was “critical” that China’s negative list be short.
Some experts believe China’s list will be a barometer for how serious the country’s leaders are about their promised market reforms.
On Friday last week, Chinese Vice Minister of Finance Zhu Guangyao (朱光耀) said he expects Beijing and Washington to exchange negative-list offers in the next month or so.
Zhu said he would expect “substantial” progress on the issue in September, when Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to meet with US President Barack Obama in Washington, though he added that much hard work remained on the trade front between the two countries.
In its annual position paper released yesterday, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said it was hopeful that China “will seriously and significantly” open up further to foreign investment, especially in the financial services, agriculture, automotive and healthcare sectors.
“An overreaching negative list will be a nonstarter,” the chamber said.
China’s restriction on foreign investment in the name of national security are too broad, chamber chairman James Zimmerman told reporters, adding that in the US, Chinese investors had more avenues for recourse within the courts.
“Here, without that oversight, the politics can drive some of the decisionmaking,” Zimmerman said.
Recent trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies have revolved around cybersecurity policies.
Chinese bank regulator last week temporarily suspended new financial industry rules that would have required firms to release product source codes to inspectors after an outcry from foreign business groups and the US government.
“It was suspended, but that doesn’t mean it’s resolved,” Zimmerman said. “Information security is very much a concern.”
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