U.S. Urges China to Open Markets and Help Break an Impasse in Global Trade Talks - New York Times
U.S. Urges China to Open Markets and Help Break an Impasse in Global Trade Talks - New York Times
November 15, 2005
U.S. Urges China to Open Markets and Help Break an Impasse in Global Trade Talks
By KEITH BRADSHER
BEIJING, Nov. 14 - Senior United States officials exhorted China on Monday to open its markets further, but also asked for its help in breaking an impasse in global trade talks, displaying a combination of demands and pleas that increasingly characterizes the relationship between the countries.
In speeches and interviews here just six days before President Bush arrives in Beijing, both Rob Portman, the United States trade representative, and David A. Sampson, the deputy secretary of commerce, repeated previous demands that China protect American copyrights, trademarks and patents and that more American companies be allowed to compete in China's domestic market.
But Mr. Portman said he had also urged senior Chinese officials to become more active in World Trade Organization negotiations to produce a new global trade pact.
"I believe that China, being a major player now in the global trading system, and a major beneficiary of the multilateral trading system, has a responsibility to be more engaged in the talks," he said in an interview.
The demands for changes to Chinese domestic policies coupled with a request for Chinese help in W.T.O. negotiations shows how the Chinese-American economic relationship is becoming as complex as the two countries' security relationship.
Pentagon officials have struggled to balance their challenges to China's military policy - particularly urging China to slow its rapid military buildup in coastal provinces facing Taiwan - with appeals for China to use its influence to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
On the economic front, the United States particularly hopes China will join demands from many countries for the European Union to accept deep reductions in its farm subsidies, Mr. Portman said. President Hu Jintao of China has been touring Europe for the last week, but has said nothing on trade.
"I haven't told them what to do, but I think it's fairly obvious: once becoming engaged, you can't help but see that the problem right now is that the European Union is not willing to agree to an agriculture proposal that provides for meaningful market access and until they do, it is impractical to think this round can be successful," he said.
European Union officials have contended that the main obstacle lies in the reluctance of large developing countries like Brazil to cut tariffs sharply on imported industrial goods. They were also irritated by the eleventh-hour offer of cuts in farm subsidies from the United States, which had stalled on the issue.
Mr. Portman's comments reflected growing American frustration with China's near silence on the global trade talks. Just four weeks remain until trade ministers from 148 countries and customs territories arrive for negotiations in Hong Kong, but Chinese officials have largely stayed on the sidelines.
W.T.O. officials have long said their goal at the Hong Kong conference is to make progress toward a global deal, not to actually complete it, and they have ratcheted down their forecasts of how much progress can be achieved after unsuccessful talks in London and Geneva last week among ministers from the world's leading trading powers, including the United States, the European Union and China.
China has unique influence in Europe, with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany making almost annual visits to Beijing in recent years, mainly to seek contracts for their exporters. President Hu stayed at Buckingham Palace as the guest of Queen Elizabeth last week and dined with King Juan Carlos at the Zarzuela Palace in Madrid this week, but he has been silent on trade.
China itself has begun experimenting with farm subsidies, notably through provincial governments providing sometimes lavish assistance to tea exporters. China's farmers have lagged behind city dwellers considerably as the economy has boomed over the last quarter century, and provincial governments are now trying, with strong encouragement from Beijing, to address that imbalance.
In addition to seeking help with the trade talks, Mr. Portman also delivered a strongly worded speech here exhorting China to dismantle a variety of regulations that have limited the expansion of American companies in China's telecommunications, insurance and direct sales markets. He denounced China's policy of limiting multinational automakers to 50 percent stakes in assembly plants.
"There is no reason foreign automakers should not be able to own 100 percent of their Chinese joint ventures," Mr. Portman said. The Chinese policy is aimed at forcing the transfer of advanced technology to Chinese automakers, which may soon become large exporters of their own models.
Mr. Sampson took a far less confrontational tone in a speech three hours later, urging China to limit counterfeiting, but also emphasizing successes in the bilateral relationship, like the profitable operations that many American companies have set up here. "To focus exclusively on the U.S. trade deficit is, I think, to look at only one part" of a broader trading relationship in which real progress is being made, he said.
Liao Xiaoqi, China's vice minister of commerce, was conspicuously silent on W.T.O. issues in his remarks on a panel with Mr. Sampson. He highlighted the arrest of 4,080 people in less than a year on a variety of illegal copying charges. He said the American trade deficit with China was partly a result of American limits on the export to China of technologies that may have military as well as civilian applications.
Mr. Liao also criticized the United States for already imposing some import limits; these have fallen on Chinese products ranging from socks to bedroom furniture. "Trade protection measures by the U.S. have been on the rise," he said.
Mr. Portman and Mr. Sampson spoke at a conference here on trade, diplomacy and scientific research. Former President George H. W. Bush and the presidential library foundation and public policy school named after him at Texas A&M University played large roles in organizing the conference.
The four-day conference, which runs through Thursday, has attracted senior Chinese officials and many current and former top American government officials who are Bush family friends; the former president and his wife, Barbara, are attending some of the events.
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November 15, 2005
U.S. Urges China to Open Markets and Help Break an Impasse in Global Trade Talks
By KEITH BRADSHER
BEIJING, Nov. 14 - Senior United States officials exhorted China on Monday to open its markets further, but also asked for its help in breaking an impasse in global trade talks, displaying a combination of demands and pleas that increasingly characterizes the relationship between the countries.
In speeches and interviews here just six days before President Bush arrives in Beijing, both Rob Portman, the United States trade representative, and David A. Sampson, the deputy secretary of commerce, repeated previous demands that China protect American copyrights, trademarks and patents and that more American companies be allowed to compete in China's domestic market.
But Mr. Portman said he had also urged senior Chinese officials to become more active in World Trade Organization negotiations to produce a new global trade pact.
"I believe that China, being a major player now in the global trading system, and a major beneficiary of the multilateral trading system, has a responsibility to be more engaged in the talks," he said in an interview.
The demands for changes to Chinese domestic policies coupled with a request for Chinese help in W.T.O. negotiations shows how the Chinese-American economic relationship is becoming as complex as the two countries' security relationship.
Pentagon officials have struggled to balance their challenges to China's military policy - particularly urging China to slow its rapid military buildup in coastal provinces facing Taiwan - with appeals for China to use its influence to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
On the economic front, the United States particularly hopes China will join demands from many countries for the European Union to accept deep reductions in its farm subsidies, Mr. Portman said. President Hu Jintao of China has been touring Europe for the last week, but has said nothing on trade.
"I haven't told them what to do, but I think it's fairly obvious: once becoming engaged, you can't help but see that the problem right now is that the European Union is not willing to agree to an agriculture proposal that provides for meaningful market access and until they do, it is impractical to think this round can be successful," he said.
European Union officials have contended that the main obstacle lies in the reluctance of large developing countries like Brazil to cut tariffs sharply on imported industrial goods. They were also irritated by the eleventh-hour offer of cuts in farm subsidies from the United States, which had stalled on the issue.
Mr. Portman's comments reflected growing American frustration with China's near silence on the global trade talks. Just four weeks remain until trade ministers from 148 countries and customs territories arrive for negotiations in Hong Kong, but Chinese officials have largely stayed on the sidelines.
W.T.O. officials have long said their goal at the Hong Kong conference is to make progress toward a global deal, not to actually complete it, and they have ratcheted down their forecasts of how much progress can be achieved after unsuccessful talks in London and Geneva last week among ministers from the world's leading trading powers, including the United States, the European Union and China.
China has unique influence in Europe, with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany making almost annual visits to Beijing in recent years, mainly to seek contracts for their exporters. President Hu stayed at Buckingham Palace as the guest of Queen Elizabeth last week and dined with King Juan Carlos at the Zarzuela Palace in Madrid this week, but he has been silent on trade.
China itself has begun experimenting with farm subsidies, notably through provincial governments providing sometimes lavish assistance to tea exporters. China's farmers have lagged behind city dwellers considerably as the economy has boomed over the last quarter century, and provincial governments are now trying, with strong encouragement from Beijing, to address that imbalance.
In addition to seeking help with the trade talks, Mr. Portman also delivered a strongly worded speech here exhorting China to dismantle a variety of regulations that have limited the expansion of American companies in China's telecommunications, insurance and direct sales markets. He denounced China's policy of limiting multinational automakers to 50 percent stakes in assembly plants.
"There is no reason foreign automakers should not be able to own 100 percent of their Chinese joint ventures," Mr. Portman said. The Chinese policy is aimed at forcing the transfer of advanced technology to Chinese automakers, which may soon become large exporters of their own models.
Mr. Sampson took a far less confrontational tone in a speech three hours later, urging China to limit counterfeiting, but also emphasizing successes in the bilateral relationship, like the profitable operations that many American companies have set up here. "To focus exclusively on the U.S. trade deficit is, I think, to look at only one part" of a broader trading relationship in which real progress is being made, he said.
Liao Xiaoqi, China's vice minister of commerce, was conspicuously silent on W.T.O. issues in his remarks on a panel with Mr. Sampson. He highlighted the arrest of 4,080 people in less than a year on a variety of illegal copying charges. He said the American trade deficit with China was partly a result of American limits on the export to China of technologies that may have military as well as civilian applications.
Mr. Liao also criticized the United States for already imposing some import limits; these have fallen on Chinese products ranging from socks to bedroom furniture. "Trade protection measures by the U.S. have been on the rise," he said.
Mr. Portman and Mr. Sampson spoke at a conference here on trade, diplomacy and scientific research. Former President George H. W. Bush and the presidential library foundation and public policy school named after him at Texas A&M University played large roles in organizing the conference.
The four-day conference, which runs through Thursday, has attracted senior Chinese officials and many current and former top American government officials who are Bush family friends; the former president and his wife, Barbara, are attending some of the events.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top
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