China's president told the U.S. business community on Thursday that trade relations between the two countries are win-win, selling his country as a U.S. export market while defending it as a fair competitor on tariff rates and intellectual property.
U.S.-China trade relations could be "limitless," President Hu Jintao said on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu, during a meeting with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major companies, including Wal-Mart and FedEx.
To achieve that ambition, the two countries should expand trade in new and clean energy, emissions efficiency, pharmaceuticals, aviation and aerospace, Hu said, according to a statement on the Foreign Ministry's website (fmprc.gov.cn).
"If the United States soon loosens its limitations on technology exports to China, it will not only be good for relieving unbalanced trade, it will also promote the U.S. economy and employment," he said.
China's imports will hopefully exceed $8 trillion in the next five years, with consumer goods imports worth $5 trillion by 2015, Hu said, making China a huge market to help the United States revive manufacturing and reach President Barack Obama's "export doubling" goal.
Hu arrived in Hawaii on Thursday ahead of a weekend of meetings with Asia-Pacific leaders at a summit already overshadowed by growing alarm over the fallout from euro-zone upheaval.
"Currently, instability and uncertainty of world economic recovery are growing," Hu said. "Under this type of situation, we especially need the world to cross the river in the same boat, and respond hand-in-hand with a spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit."
The summit, to be hosted by Obama in the state where he was born, has been billed as an effort to make progress on forging a new free-trade area and an environmental technology pact, steps that could eventually foster global growth.
The APEC gathering is also a chance for the United States to reassert its leadership in a region where China poses a growing competitive threat.
Chinese officials have expressed doubts about U.S. goals at APEC, including a green growth initiative that would cap tariffs on environmental goods and services, such as solar panels and wind turbines, at 5 percent.
On Monday, Chinese officials called Obama's APEC plans too ambitious, noting that his tariff reduction plan would unfairly target developing economies and not require any U.S. action.
Hu defended China's tariff rates in his meeting with U.S. business leaders, saying that China had dropped its overall tariffs from 15.3 percent to 9.8 percent in the nearly 10 years since it joined the World Trade Organization, putting it "far below" average rates for developing countries.
TRADE GRIPES
Addressing a long-held complaint among the foreign business community in China, Hu said that enforcing implementation of China's already established intellectual property legal framework was a priority.
Those comments echoed concerns expressed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a speech early in the day, when she called on China to "end unfair discrimination" against foreign companies and their technologies and intellectual property.
But the United States' laundry list of complaints about unfair business practice is long, with China's solar industry at the heart of recent debate about whether it unfairly subsidizes and supports it domestic industries.
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday it would investigate whether Chinese companies sell solar panels in the United States at unfair discounts and receive illegal government subsidies.
Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming reiterated China's "grave concerns" over the solar investigation in a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
Chen criticized the United States for calling for free trade on environmental goods in the same breath as it announces it is exploring trade remedies against China, a statement on the ministries website (www.mofcom.gov.cn) said.