Recently, high-level officials of US Department of Commerce
visited China in succession, lobbying China on the trade imbalance
between the two countries. Regarding this, a responsible person
with the press office of China's Ministry of
Commerce said at an interview that currently, China-US economic
and trade relations are generally developing well and the problem
should be properly resolved by adhering to the principle of seeking
balance in development.
It is reported that the bilateral trade has been developing
rapidly ever since the establishment of Sino-US diplomatic
relations. Statistics from the Chinese side show that the bilateral
trade volume has increased about 40 times. This responsible person
told the reporter that there is indeed some trade surplus on the
Chinese side, but the imbalance should be approached in an
objective, all-around and developmental way. It should be noted
that the United States has reaped huge economic profits from the
bilateral trade. China is a foreign market that has witnessed the
fastest growth of US exports. US exports to China have more than
quadrupled since 1990, creating nearly 400,000 jobs for the United
States. Because US consumers can enjoy good and cheap Chinese
commodities, they have lowered living costs and improved the
quality of life. In addition, due to different Chinese and US
economic structures, most commodities imported by the United States
form China do not constitute direct substitutes for US-made
commodities.
The person in charge pointed out that there are many reasons for
the trade imbalance between the two countries, an important reason
of which lies in the different statistical methods used by the two
countries. The statistical method for international trade employed
by the United States overestimates the unfavorable balance of trade
with China. The overestimate is manifested in four aspects.
First, the use of a different statistical standard for imports
and exports leads to the overestimate of the value of imported
goods and the underestimate of that of exported goods;
Second, the United States does not take into account the value
added factor, instead, it regards Chinese commodities transited to
the country via Hong Kong or another third party all as imports
from China. Meanwhile, it does not count the US commodities
transited to China via Hong Kong, thus further overstating the
deficits of trade with China;
Third, while computing trade deficits with China, the US side
only counts commodity trade, but excludes the service trade;
and
Fourth, many Chinese commodities are transited to Caribbean and
Latin American regions by the United States, but the US side
includes this part of transited goods in China's exports to the
United States.
In addition, processing trade products take up a large
proportion of China's exports to the United States. The adjustment
of the layout of processing trade in the Asian region has led to
the shift of US surplus of trade with relevant countries and
regions on to the Chinese mainland. The responsible person stressed
that change is taking place in the Chinese market with respect to
bilateral trade, the United States should timely adjust its export
policy, lift its control over its high-tech export to China, so as
to facilitate US enterprises' expansion of exports to China and
reduce pressure on the imbalance of bilateral trade.
The responsible person noted that China always advocates
realizing a basic balance for Sino-US trade in the course of
development and has actively taken measures to expand imports from
the United States. A case in point is the forthcoming visit by some
Chinese procurement delegations to the United States.
(People's Daily November 10, 2003)