BEIJING - China is
likely to ink huge import deals, possibly
amounting to US$12 billion, with the United States
during the second Sino-American strategic economic
dialogue next month, in a move to narrow the trade
gap.
The talks, which will be co-chaired
by Vice Premier Wu Yi and US Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson, are the highest-profile dialogue
mechanism over economic issues between the two
countries.
A proposed procurement
delegation, likely to be led by Vice
Minister of Commerce Ma
Xiuhong, will cover a wide range of US
agricultural and industrial products, from soybean
and cotton manufacturing machinery to electronic
goods. The delegation will visit Atlanta, Chicago,
San Francisco and Washington.
Although
there's no official word on the probable
procurement spree, it will be seen as the latest
move by China to cut its trade surplus with the
US, which totaled over $144 billion in 2006.
Chinese enterprises last year signed about
$16 billion in import deals with their US
counterparts on products ranging from soybean to
aircraft during President Hu Jintao's visit to the
US.
These organized procurements reflect
China's intention to address the trade imbalance,
said Zhang Liping, a researcher with the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences. But some experts argue
that the proposed procurement would have only a
short-term impact on the Sino-US trade gap.
In order to pursue more balanced trade
with some key trade partners like the US, the
Chinese government has been encouraging imports.
Wang Xinpei, spokesman for the Ministry of
Commerce, said last week that China was studying
new ways to increase imports.
This round
of Sino-US dialogue is expected to be tense as the
US government has just referred China to the World
Trade Organization (WTO) over intellectual
property right issues and for allegedly
restricting distribution of foreign music, films
and books.
US complaints against China at
the WTO over alleged copyright piracy issues will
not help intellectual property cooperation between
the two countries, a spokesman for China's
National Copyright Administration (NCA) said on
Tuesday.
"I don't deny that IPR
[intellectual property rights] infringement and
piracy occurs in the Chinese market, but that
doesn't mean the United States is [entitled] to
file complaints against China at the WTO," said
the NCA spokesman at a press conference.
The two new WTO cases brought by the US
were seen as the latest effort by the Bush
administration to increase pressure on China in
the area of trade despite China's efforts to crack
down on piracy.
Wang said China has made
tremendous efforts in IPR protection over the past
20 years. But "copyright infringement and piracy
is a global and universal problem, which cannot be
eradicated overnight", he said.
The
spokesman said China and the United States have
regular consultation mechanisms to address IPR
issues and that IPR problems could be solved
effectively through communication. "Cooperation
and coordination [are] much more useful than
mutual accusation," he said.
Wang also
refuted the US government's claim that China's
market access restrictions on films, books and
audio-visual products had lead to rampant piracy,
saying that the accusation "does not bear serious
scrutiny".
China promised to import 20
foreign movies when it joined the WTO in 2001, but
the real number of imported foreign movies far
exceeded the figure, Wang said.
From 2000
to 2004, China imported 4,332 films through
various channels, 40% to 50% of which were from
the United States, statistics from the Ministry of
Culture showed.
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