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Posted on 12/12/2007 6:32:32 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
China, US product safety friction to last years: US health chief
Wed Dec 12, 12:33 PM ET
It will take years of unprecedented collaboration for China and the United States to resolve distrust over the safety of each other's products, a top US official said Wednesday.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said an agreement signed a day earlier to increase oversight of Chinese manufacturers was just the beginning of a new era of necessary cooperation between the economic giants.
"We are at the beginning stage," Leavitt said. "To quote a Chinese saying, 'a man who would move a mountain starts by moving small stones,'" Leavitt told reporters on the sidelines of high-level bilateral trade talks.
Under two agreements signed Tuesday, China has vowed tighter supervision of a range of food items, farming feed, drugs and medical devices, including some that have been at the centre of the safety scares.
Chinese producers of the affected products must register with local authorities and submit to annual inspections to ensure US standards are met. Results of such checks will be shared with the United States.
"This issue will not be concluded a year from now. It will not be finished in five years or 10 years. This will require continuous improvement."
The safety of Chinese products has been thrown into doubt in recent months by a series of scandals involving product categories as diverse as toys, tyres toothpaste and clothes, as well as food.
Leavitt said the two sides will have to come together on common product quality standards to build trust so that policing of product quality does not fall to inspectors in each country, as more stringent checks will slow trade.
"Inspections are not the key, so we need to know who we can trust," he said.
President George W. Bush's administration has been under pressure to act amid regular reports of dangerous Chinese imports.
Leavitt's comments came at the two-day Strategic Economic Dialogue, a twice-a-year event that discusses long-term trade issues between the two sides.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071212/bs_afp/chinaustradetalks_071212152715
China tells US to fix its own economic problems
by Peter Harmsen
Wed Dec 12, 12:38 PM ET
China told the United States Wednesday to fix its own economic problems rather than deliver lectures, as the two sides warned at top-level talks here that protectionism threatened their trade ties.
The United States came to the two days of talks on the outskirts of Beijing with a long list of complaints about China's economic and trade practices, with the value of the Chinese currency, the yuan, chief among its concerns.
But China's vice minister of commerce, Chen Deming, said a weakening US dollar was a bigger global economic concern than the value of the yuan.
"(The yuan) is not the key issue. Currently my focus is more on the depreciation of the US dollar and its possible impact and repercussions for the world economy," Chen told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.
"I sincerely wish to see a scenario where the US economy is getting stronger and the US dollar is getting stronger."
In her opening remarks to the third Sino-US Strategic Economic Dialogue, the head of China's delegation, Vice Premier Wu Yi, also told the United States bluntly to fix its own problems rather than complain about China.
"Obviously, to resort to trade protectionism and blame another country for the structural problems in the US economy is the wrong approach which would only harm the interest of the United States itself," Wu said.
Structural problems in the US economy include a low savings rate and a large public deficit, economists say.
Wu also warned that proposed US trade legislation to punish China for alleged unfair trade practices would be a mistake.
"I am particularly concerned about the 50 or so protectionist China-related bills introduced in the US Congress," said Wu, the country's highest-profile trade official.
"I need to be quite candid about this: If these bills are adopted, they will severely undermine US business ties with China."
US officials have repeatedly argued that China is employing unfair trade practices by keeping the tightly-controlled yuan artificially weak, giving Chinese exporters an unfair advantage when selling goods in the United States.
The US trade deficit with China hit 23.8 billion dollars in September, according to US figures, and many in the United States believe domestic jobs are being lost to Chinese firms.
The leader of the US delegation to this week's talks, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, repeated his calls in opening remarks Wednesday for Beijing to loosen controls over the yuan, arguing it was in China's interests to do so.
"China's leaders have voiced concerns about China's macroeconomic stability, in particular mounting inflation, growing asset bubbles and possible overheating," Paulson said.
"A more flexible exchange rate policy is especially important to China now, given these risks."
Paulson also cautioned against rising protectionism, both in China and the United States.
"Whereas trade was once largely a source of stability in US-China relations, it has recently become a source of tension, and not only because of safety concerns," Paulson said.
"Worries about the effects of foreign competition -- through trade or through foreign investment -- have led to a rise in economic nationalism and protectionist sentiments in both our nations."
He warned against "short-term, politically expedient actions," arguing that neither side can "protect (its) way to further prosperity."
US trade chief Susan Schwab, who is also part of the US delegation, said in in an annual report delivered to Congress on Tuesday that China was failing to live up to its World Trade Organisation commitments.
The two sides held as series of meetings throughout Wednesday. Paulson and other senior US delegation members will meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing on Thursday following the end of the talks.
Ping!
“Structural problems in the US economy include a low savings rate and a large public deficit, economists say.”
Well, the ChiComs are right about this. If Americans stop buying so much junk from China, they can save more. We should all pledge to decrease purchases of Chinese made products by 20% in 2008. That would solve a lot of our problems, one of which is our wimpy HHS Sec. being raked over the coals by Communists at these worthless trade talks.
I haven’t bought anything made in China for Christmas this year and am very proud of that.
thanks, bfl
Cheers!
How much did Chicoms pay for this bribe? Just sanction all the imports from China and starve those Communists to death!
how about petitioning congress to stop taxing interest on savings?
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