May 14, 1999	atimes.com

China China calls for U.S. help on WTO this year By Peter Harmsen and Emily Schwartz Bloomberg News Beijing - China called on the Clinton administration to keep its commitment to support the country's admission to the World Trade Organization this year, as U.S. negotiators canceled a trip to Beijing because of growing anti- American sentiment in China. ''China's entry into the WTO is in the interest of China and of all WTO member countries,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said at a press conference. ''We hope the U.S. will put into practice its commitment to support China's entry into the WTO during 1999." Zhu's comments came a day after China broke off talks with the U.S. on arms control, international security and human rights to protest NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade last Friday. That raised questions about the status of China's efforts to join the WTO, something Premier Zhu Rongji wants to do to promote his reform program and attract foreign investment. Canadian Trade Minister Sergio Marchi urged both Washington and Beijing not to link the mishap in Yugoslavia, which killed three people and wounded 20, to China's bid to enter the WTO, the Geneva-based group that sets the rules for global trade. To link the bombing to the WTO would be ''the beginning of the end,'' Marchi told an audience at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo, where he's meeting with trade ministers from the U.S., the European Union and Japan. He said governments must distinguish between the WTO issue ''and the isolated accident we regret and mourn over." A U.S. delegation scheduled to arrive in Beijing next week canceled the trip in the wake of a State Department travel advisory to China. After four days of demonstrations by thousands of Chinese against NATO embassies, the State Department urged Americans not to travel to the country and barred official visits. European Union and Chinese leaders Tuesday canceled WTO talks scheduled for Thursday. Major U.S. corporations such as Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Motorola Inc. are lobbying for China's entry to the WTO, saying it would open the market to more U.S. goods and services and narrow the $57 billion U.S. trade deficit. That corporate firepower is one reason many analysts expect a WTO pact will eventually be forged. Premier Zhu is also eager for China to join, yet he's under fire at home for failing to reach an agreement with President Bill Clinton in April. Zhu had offered market-opening concessions including promises to lift geographic restrictions on where foreign insurance companies can do business, to double the present number of passenger and cargo flights between the U.S. and China and to allow U.S. wheat and citrus exports to China. Hard-liners in Beijing balked at the concessions and worried whether China should be opening its markets at a time when it is shuttering loss-making state-run enterprises and putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work. The fallout from the NATO bombing in Belgrade gives Zhu's critics more ammunition. U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, testifying Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, warned Chinese government officials against ''calculated exploitation'' of people's passions. Cohen said while the Chinese people were ''justifiably angry'' at the bombing, they were being shown a distorted version of events by their government. U.S. support is crucial to any Chinese hopes of entering the WTO. U.S. trade representatives are discussing with Chinese officials whether they should hold the WTO talks outside China, while making it clear they want to continue working toward an accord. ''We've got to do things to make sure that the Chinese understand this was an accident,'' Commerce Secretary William Daley told reporters in Washington last night, referring to the embassy bombing. ''It would be foolhardy to believe that it would have no effect." Still, while Clinton and other officials have apologized for the bombing, U.S. trade representatives say they are not backing off on demands that China make more concessions to gain admission to the WTO. ''They have to make better offers on services on protocol issues such as dumping and safeguards against surges of imports, and we have to deal with some banking and securities issues,'' David Aaron, the Commerce Department's undersecretary for international trade, told the Bloomberg Forum. These issues ''can be resolved if China really wants to come forward,'' Aaron said. ''If they don't, well then they have every excuse not to." The angry reaction to the Belgrade bombing ensures that any accord that materializes is at least a month away, if not longer, said Greg Mastel, an international economist who worked in the Senate for nine years on trade issues. As a result, the U.S. Congress will probably have to debate Chinese trade issues twice, Mastel said. One round of debate will occur in June as legislators consider the Clinton administration's expected renewal of ''normal trade relations'' with China - a status that used to called ''most favored nation." The second round would come later, if China and the U.S. agree on its WTO entry terms and Clinton seeks permanent normal trade relations with the world's most populous nation. Previously, many trade analysts and companies that want China in the WTO were seeking a ''one-vote'' strategy, although ''that was an iffy plan anyway,'' Mastel said.

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