Beijing warns Washington against piracy sanctions

Beijing warns Washington against piracy sanctions

BEIJING (AFP): China warned yesterday of retaliation if the
United States resorted to sanctions over a long-running copyright
piracy dispute, as the two sides prepared for new talks on the
contentious issue next month.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC)
official Zhang Yuejiao told the China Daily that the imposition
of threatened U.S. sanctions worth some US$1 billion against
imports of Chinese goods would "undoubtedly trigger retaliation."

Zheng said China had done its best to meet commitments made in
an 11th-hour Sino-U.S. agreement on protecting intellectual
property rights (IPR) signed Feb. 26, 1995, urging Washington to
take a "practical attitude" by fulfilling its pledges to
cooperate with Beijing to curb the problem.

"You can't expect IPR violations to disappear overnight," said
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences IPR center director Zheng
Chengsi.

Resorting to "meaningless" sanctions would "only indicate that
the Clinton administration is incapable of handling the Sino-U.S.
economic relationship," he added, saying it was unfair of
Washington to single out China from numerous countries where
piracy was widespread.

The comments came ahead of a new round of talks here next
month aimed at settling the dispute.

The China Daily reported that the exact dates of the talks
remained unavailable, but a U.S. embassy spokeswoman said
Washington's chief IPR negotiator, Assistant Trade Representative
Lee Sands, was due to make an eight-day visit to Beijing from
Wednesday.

Sands' boss, U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Charlene
Barshefsky, might join him for the final three days, the
spokeswoman said, in an indication that Washington may be hoping
for a breakthrough by the end of the talks.

Washington has revived its threat, first made before the
signing of the 1995 agreement, to impose $1 billion worth of
sanctions if Beijing fails to make rapid progress in implementing
the deal.

U.S. officials said last month that while Chinese police have
cracked down on traders of pirated goods, the production
situation has actually deteriorated over the past year with the
number of compact disc plants rising from 29 to 34.

All are engaged piracy, they alleged, adding that the
factories' shift to increasingly high-priced items pushed up the
value of U.S. firms' losses to piracy in China in 1995 above
1994's $866 million.

China has denied the allegations, insisting that significant
progress has been made in tackling the piracy problem.