u***r
发帖数: 4825 | 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/business/global/a-long-shot-f
BEIJING — Timothy F. Geithner, the U.S. Treasury secretary, came to Beijing
on Tuesday hoping to persuade Chinese leaders to toughen their diplomatic
stance toward Iran and soften their opposition to fiscal changes like a
stronger renminbi that might help the American economy.
By many accounts, including some from the Chinese themselves, his odds of
success are long. But on other issues, led by the need to address Europe’s
debt problems, the two sides may find more to agree on.
Mr. Geithner, the point man for the Obama administration’s economic
dealings with the Chinese, arrives here as fiscal and trade relations show
signs of fraying. The Chinese slapped stiff tariffs last month on imports of
American automobiles and opened an investigation in November into American
government subsidies to renewable-energy industries.
On the American side, President Obama left China out of a trade pact with
east Asian countries, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that he announced in
November. Washington is investigating or formally pursing trade disputes on
a range of goods, like solar panels, broiler chickens and steel pipes.
Mr. Geithner’s arrival coincides with a report that Mr. Obama is creating
an interagency task force to ferret out unfair trade and business practices
by the Chinese.
That report, in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, said that Mr. Geithner
would brief Chinese officials on the venture during his visit here.
U.S. corporations, involved in industries like telecommunications and
financial services, have increasingly complained that China continues to
restrict their access to domestic markets, despite pledges of openness when
China joined the World Trade Organization a decade ago.
Differences aside, the economic relationship between the two countries has
become so broad that Mr. Geithner and his counterparts are expected to find
much to agree on.
In meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday with the vice prime ministers Wang
Qishan and Li Keqiang, Vice President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Wen
Jiabao, the two sides are expected to focus on ways to keep Europe’s debt
crisis from dragging the global economy back into recession.
At the first meeting Tuesday evening, Mr. Wang alluded to the global role
facing the two largest economies in the world, saying the United Sates and
China were “having important cooperation in the multilateral and global
arena in the areas of economy, finance, trade policies and also G-20 related
affairs.”
The visit also offers a chance for a meeting with Mr. Xi, the presumed
successor to President Hu Jintao, before Mr. Xi travels to the United States
this year.
Yet Mr. Geithner seems unlikely to gain many concessions on the two issues
that have been headlined for this visit: the valuation of the renminbi and U
.S. efforts to impose new financial sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program.
The United States has long complained that China keeps the renminbi
artificially low to give its products a price advantage in foreign trade.
Under constant U.S. pressure, China has allowed a slow appreciation of its
currency against the dollar this year — in unadjusted terms, a gain of
nearly 4.8 percent against the dollar in the last year, according to the
Bank of China.
But some U.S. economists say the renminbi would appreciate another 10
percent to 20 percent were the market allowed to set its value. The Obama
administration said in a report in December that China’s currency remained
“substantially undervalued,” although it declined to take the sensitive
step of branding China a currency manipulator.
Mr. Geithner is sure to raise the issue of the renminbi this week. But he is
unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing given the uncertainty surrounding
China’s own economic prospects, said Li Xiangyang, the vice director of the
Institute of World Economics and Politics at the state-run Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences.
“Other currencies are dropping against the U.S. dollar right now,” he said
in an interview.
He added: “The United States has no right to ask China to appreciate its
currency when the global trade is declining, and China’s economy itself is
facing the risk of decline.”
Mr. Geithner faces an equally hard task on the Iranian issue. His Beijing
visit comes four days after President Obama signed legislation that would
deny foreign financial companies that buy Iranian oil access to the U.S.
financial system. Those sanctions aim to increase pressure on Iran to
curtail what many say is an effort to build nuclear weapons.
The European Union is moving toward a ban on purchases of Iranian oil, and
Japan and South Korea, two of Iran’s major customers, have indicated muted
support for the Washington initiative. Mr. Geithner will seek to enlist
China’s help as well.
But on Monday, a senior Beijing diplomat seemed to suggest that that idea
had no chance of succeeding. The diplomat, the vice foreign minister, Cui
Tiankai, repeated China’s argument that differences over Iran’s nuclear
intentions “cannot be resolved by sanctions alone,” but require more
negotiations.
Mr. Cui dismissed the notion that China should try to sway Tehran by
reducing or ending its purchases of Iranian oil or natural gas.
“Regular economic and trade relations between China and Iran have nothing
to do with the nuclear issue,” he said. “We should not mix issues with
different natures.”
China bought more than 11 percent of its oil imports from Iran in the first
11 months of 2011, up from 9.6 percent in the same period in 2010, Chinese
customs statistics show. The Chinese also have a thriving business in oil
services in Iran, having committed $120 billion to oil and gas projects
there as of 2009, according to published reports.
China has historically been reluctant to support economic sanctions not
approved by the United Nations. But its increasing isolation on the Iranian
nuclear issue could lead the country to take some other measure to meet U.S.
requests, like a direct message to Tehran, said François Godement, a
senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Mia Li contributed research, and Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from
Hong Kong.
Trade surplus shrinks
Exports from China rose 13.4 percent in December, compared with the same
month a year ago, while import growth unexpectedly slowed to 11.8 percent
because of lower prices and moderating domestic demand, government data
released Tuesday showed, Sharon LaFraniere reported from Beijing.
The Chinese trade surplus shrank to $155 billion in 2011, from $183 billion
in 2010, as imports picked up and demand for Chinese goods in Europe and
elsewhere softened. IHS Global Insight, an economic forecasting firm, said
that while still sizable, the surplus was China’s lowest in three years.
That could help China fend off pressure from the United States to allow its
currency to appreciate faster.
Analysts with IHS Global Insight called the decline in import growth “
worrying” and an indication of rapidly falling domestic demand. “This will
be of little help to a flagging global economy,” they said.
But Goldman Sachs noted that trade data was notoriously volatile and
attributed much of the slowdown to lower prices, not fewer purchases.
Barclays Capital also cited lower commodity prices, saying that domestic
demand, while moderating, remained “robust.” |
|
