CHINA / National
US senators to visit China to talk trade
(AFP/chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-03-16 06:57
Two US senators announced plans to visit China next week in an effort to
press Beijing on its trade policies ahead of a vote later this month on
legislation that could lead to hefty sanctions.
US Senator Lindsey Graham(L), speaks as US Senator Chuck Schumer, listens
during a media conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. [AFP]
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer and his Republican colleague Lindsey
Graham said that they would visit China before a floor vote on the bill,
which would slap a 27.5-percent tariff on Chinese imports.
They will lead a delegation leaving March 19 for China and will meet with
high-level government, economic, business, and security officials in the
three major cities, according to a statement from the two lawmakers.
"We are going to China next week because this is a critical time for
global trade and our relationship with the world's most populous and
fastest growing country," said Schumer.
"Today, we have the largest trade deficit in history with China. If China
is to be a player in the world economy, they must play by the rules every
other country has to play by ... We hope we are given some reason to be
hopeful that China will revalue its currency and play by the rules while
we are there."
Washington is facing growing complaints over the bulging US trade deficit
with China, which hit 201.6 billion dollars for 2005, up 24.5 percent for
the year.
"It's an amazing country in many ways," U.S. President George W. Bush
said of China, while discussing rising American protectionism with major
newspaper publishers in Washington D.C last week. "It's a country that
has chosen the path, by and large, of markets and enterprise. They are an
economic issue for us, and that's why we've got a huge deficit with them."
Some critics and lawmakers argue that China benefits from an artificially
low currency and various subsidies, offers few trade opportunities for US
firms and does little to crack down on piracy of US patents and
copyrights.
And some American economists have blamed the American enlarging deficit
on American consumerism.
R. Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to
the White House and now the dean of Columbia Business School, said that
even a sharp revaluation of the yuan by 15 percent or 20 percent might
not make much of a difference in the overall trade deficit of the United
States as long as the United States has a very low savings rate.
"If we don't have a deficit with China," he said, "we'll have a deficit
with someone else."
Despite China's official statistics showing a 2005 U.S. trade surplus of
US$114 billion, trade officials say China is not deliberately pursuing a
trade surplus with the United States but rather a balance in imports and
exports.
On July 21 last year, China's central bank, the People's Bank of China,
raised the value of the yuan against the US dollar by 2.1% and adopted a
market-sensitive currency exchange policy. The policy allows the yuan's
daily rate to float in line with major world currency changes. The yuan
has since climbed a further one percent against the dollar.
Li Zhaoxing, China's Foreign Affairs Minister, said Tuesday in Beijing
China not only wants to import American Boeing planes, grain, citrus and
other fruit, it also wants to import high-value, high-tech computers and
equipment. America has refused to export such items to China since 1989,
citing national security reasons. Li noted inexpensive Chinese goods have
helped America maintain high living standards and helped reduce
inflationary pressures.
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