Bilateral trade ties hurt by row: China
Bilateral trade ties hurt by row: China
Agence France-Presse, Beijing
China warned the United States on Friday bilateral trade will be
hurt if import quotas are slapped on textile products, as the
U.S. Federal Reserve chief cautioned against "creeping
protectionism".
U.S. Ambassador Clark Randt was called in by Chinese Vice
Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong for an emergency meeting on
Thursday, a day after he was hauled in by Vice Foreign Minister
Zhou Wenzhong, the Xinhua news agency said.
Simmering tensions between the trading giants flared this week
when Washington, under pressure to protect U.S. jobs in sensitive
industries ahead of a presidential election campaign, said it
would cap imports of Chinese bras, knit fabrics and dressing
gowns.
Ma told Randt the U.S. decision would negatively impact China-
U.S. trade and harm the United States' domestic interests.
She said China "hopes the U.S. will fully recognize the
negative impact on normal trade between the two countries caused
by abusing safeguard measures on fabric products", and urged
Washington to withdraw "its wrong decision".
As the row rumbled on, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan
Greenspan called for action to counter "creeping protectionism"
in the United States and elsewhere that threaten the global
economy.
The influential Federal Reserve chief warned, without
specifically naming the disputes, that protectionism was a threat
to the international economic recovery fueled by freer global
trading.
In a speech at a financial conference in Washington, he said
that "the costs of any new such protectionist initiatives, in the
context of the wide current account imbalances, could
significantly erode the flexibility of the global economy".
"Consequently, it is imperative that creeping protectionism be
thwarted and reversed."
China's Ma said the U.S. decision did not conform to the U.S.
Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements's
procedure on special safeguards against Chinese textile products
and garments.
"The U.S. administration's decision to request negotiations
regardless of the fact runs against the WTO principles on free
trade, transparency and non-discrimination," Ma said.
China has warned it could retaliate but has not been specific,
although it said on Thursday it was studying plans to impose
duties on some U.S. manufacturing products.
The flap comes just weeks before Premier Wen Jiabao arrives in
Washington.
The Financial Times on Friday said he would go equipped with a
new, softer philosophy on trade that Beijing hopes may help
reduce tensions.
Senior Chinese officials were quoted as saying China is now
willing to accept the idea that in future it might run a trade
deficit with the rest of the world.
This is effect drops a long-standing imperative to boost
exports and accumulate foreign reserves through successive trade
surpluses, the newspaper said.
"I think there could be a trade deficit next year maybe or the
year after," Wang Mengkui, minister at the Development Research
Center of the State Council, China's cabinet, said.