China lashes U.S., Europe over currency, textiles
published: cw 20, 2005 in Global Trade & LogisticsChina on Wednesday rejected U.S. pressure for quick action toward revaluing its currency and criticized U.S. and European curbs on surging textile imports as unfair. China is standing its ground in the high-stakes trade disputes, responding to U.S. and EU pressure by accusing its critics of failing to follow through on their own market-opening pledges.
Europe and the United States dragged their feet on carrying out promises to open markets before a worldwide quota system ended Jan. 1, Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said Wednesday in comments carried by the official Xinhua News Agency. That led to a surge of inexpensive Chinese textile exports flooding Western markets this year, he said. “But now the United States and the EU blame China for such rapid growth, and (have) tried to set restrictions on China’s textile products. It’s unfair,” Bo told a group of international executives attending a conference in Beijing held by the U.S. business magazine Fortune. Rich countries should not insist that their trading partners open their markets while keeping their own markets closed in fields where they lack a competitive edge, such as textiles, Bo said. “Such activity is obviously in violation of the WTO principle of ‘free and fair trade’,” Bo was quoted as saying.
Officials here have repeatedly warned that moves to limit Chinese exports could undermine confidence in the World Trade Organization, which Beijing joined in late 2001 after pledging potentially painful market opening reforms in many areas, including banking and agriculture.
print terms
