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.