DATE=10/9/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=U-S CHINA WTO (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-255955
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: U-S Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky
is scheduled to arrive in Beijing late Tuesday for a
last-ditch round of negotiations on China's entry into
the World Trade Organization. VOA correspondent Roger
Wilkison reports that despite the eleventh-hour talks
-- China is holding to its position that it must be
allowed to join the W-T-O under the favorable terms
granted other developing countries.
TEXT: The dispatch to Beijing of a U-S mission comes
three days after President Clinton and Chinese
President Jiang Zemin agreed to make a final try to
solve their countries' negotiating deadlock.
Underlying the urgency of the discussions, the
American team includes the White House's chief
economic adviser, Gene Sperling. A new round of global
trade liberalization talks begins in Seattle on
November 30th, and if China is to join those talks and
the W-T-O, it must strike a deal with the United
States before then.
China has been trying to join the world trade group
for 13 years, but has refused to open up its markets
to the extent that the United States and the European
Union demand. China is worried that foreign
competition will force many of its creaky state-owned
industries into bankruptcy and cause an already rising
unemployment rate to increase further.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue --
speaking through an interpreter at a news briefing
Tuesday -- reiterated Beijing's public position that
China can only join W-T-O as a developing country,
which would allow it more time to open its markets.
/////INTERPRETER ACTUALITY/////
China is recognized as a developing country, and the
terms that we agree to cannot go beyond the limits
that we can bear.
/////END ACTUALITY/////
The United States says China's economy is too big and
its export machine too powerful for Beijing to qualify
for the same terms of entry as poorer developing
countries.
China and the United States nearly struck a deal on
Beijing's accession to W-T-O last April, when Chinese
Premier Zhu Rongji visited Washington and offered a
surprising package of market-opening concessions that
pleased many U-S farm groups and corporations. But
Mr. Clinton -- uncertain whether he could get the deal
approved by Congress -- held out for more concessions,
especially in banking and financial services. He also
sought protection from surges in Chinese steel and
textile exports. The deal fell through.
Washington is insisting that the latest talks start on
the basis of Mr. Zhu's offer. But Beijing says it
never agreed to some items on a list of Chinese trade
concessions that U-S officials made public at the
time. Western diplomats in Beijing say the success of
the two-day talks will depend on whether or not the
negotiators can reach a compromise both sides can live
with. (SIGNED)
NEB/RW/FC
09-Nov-1999 04:48 AM EDT (09-Nov-1999 0948 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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