©AFP/File - Saul Loeb
BEIJING (AFP) - US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in China on Sunday, kicking off a visit aimed at convincing the Asian giant to implement much-needed economic and environmental reforms more quickly.
US diplomats said Paulson was first headed to Xining, the capital of the vast northwestern province of Qinghai, where China has enacted a series of environmental protection initiatives near its largest salt-water lake.
Paulson, who heads to Beijing on Monday, will meet with government officials to discuss the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) launched last year.
The forum covers a range of economic and environmental issues, but the issue at the forefront is China's yuan, which is seen by lawmakers in the United States as grossly undervalued.
Paulson's visit comes amid growing pressure to curb the burgeoning US trade deficit with China and moves in the US Congress to punish Beijing for what some say are unfair trade policies.
Last week the Senate Finance Committee overwhelmingly approved a bill requiring the Treasury to identify nations with "fundamentally misaligned" currencies, potentially opening the door to economic sanctions against Beijing.
US lawmakers say the undervalued yuan makes US-bound exports cheaper, thereby fuelling the trade deficit, which hit 232.5 billion dollars last year.
"There is no doubt that China and other nations have been undervaluing their currency to give themselves an advantage," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the committee.
"For too long the game has been rigged against American business."
But Paulson said Friday that lawmakers were sending the wrong message by threatening to punish Beijing.
"We would like to see the Chinese move and show more flexibility," he said.
"The right way to deal with a sovereign nation is not through protectionist actions, but by making the case to them very directly as to why it's in their best interests ... that they proceed with their reforms."
China manages the yuan against a basket of foreign currencies. But it maintains that, after ending the yuan's peg to the US dollar in 2005, its currency has appreciated at a steady pace.
Paulson was due to leave China on Wednesday.
0 comments:
Post a Comment