US President George W. Bush urged China yesterday to live up to its pledges as a new member of the WTO and promote free trade.
US officials say China is throwing up barriers to American farm products with proposed rules on bio-engineered foods and is also lagging in enforcing some WTO pledges, including protection of intellectual property rights.
"China, as a full member of the WTO, will now be a full partner in the global trading system and will have the right and responsibility to fashion and enforce the rules of open trade," Bush told a news conference after talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin
China formally joined the global trade body in December, ending a 15-year quest.
The US is already China's second largest trading partner after Japan while China ranks fourth for the US. Bilateral trade was more than US$80 billion last year.
Bush, who arrived in Beijing yesterday for a two-day visit, said the US should reach out to China through trade.
"It is in our nation's interest that we trade with China. It is in our nation's interest that China adhere to the rules of the World Trade Organization," he said while viewing an engine made by US firm Cummins Inc, which powers buses in Beijing.
In his meeting with Jiang, Bush raised the issue of China's planned rules on bio-engineered foods, which threaten US$1.0 billion in US soybean sales annually, but the matter was still unresolved, a US official said.
"To my knowledge, this is still an issue that has to be resolved," National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice told reporters.
The US says the rules, which go into effect on March 20, lack scientific evidence and involve a complicated certification procedure which is effectively a trade barrier.
Helped by WTO entry, China is on the way to becoming the world's second biggest economy after the US, analysts say.
But the world should not fear the rise of the economic giant, Jiang told the news conference.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Proposed amendments would forbid the use of all personal electronic devices during school hours in high schools and below, starting from the next school year in August, the Ministry of Education said on Monday. The Regulations on the Use of Mobile Devices at Educational Facilities up to High Schools (高級中等以下學校校園行動載具使用原則) state that mobile devices — defined as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches or other wearables — should be turned off at school. The changes would stipulate that use of such devices during class is forbidden, and the devices should be handed to a teacher or the school for safekeeping. The amendments also say
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and