Lack of transparency, complex regulations, and trade complaints straining US/China relationship
Wei and Schwartz 6/6 (Lingling Wei and Felicia Schwartz, Wei is part of WSJ’s Beiking Bureau and studies Chinese finance, Schwartz is a Dartmouth graduate and reporter at WSJ’s DC bureau, “U.S., China Find Common Ground Elusive at High-Level Talks,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/6/2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/beijings-south-china-sea-claims-cloud-u-s-china-talks-1465180495) KC
For many years the bedrock of U.S.-China relations, trade and investment have emerged as a new source of friction. The Obama administration, given the sharp rhetoric in the presidential election, has issued trade complaints and levied duties on some Chinese goods, including the cold-rolled steel used in appliances and auto parts. U.S. business groups are more vocal about what they see as an uneven playing field, with regulations restricting access to major sectors and pressuring them to sharetechnology and other proprietary information with Chinese partners. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong tour the Forbidden City’s Qianlong Garden in Beijing, June 5, 2016. ENLARGE U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong tour the Forbidden City’s Qianlong Garden in Beijing, June 5, 2016. Photo: Reuters . “Candidly, foreign businesses wonder if they are welcome, and find China’s regulatory environment harder and harder to navigate,” Mr. Lew said during Monday’s talks. He called on Beijing to increase transparency and remove barriers to market access. Chinese officials, who want to keep factories humming in the midst of an economic slowdown, have criticized the U.S. and other foreign governments for resorting to protectionist measures to protect home markets from China’s competitive exports. Some of Beijing’s prickliness was evident after Mr. Lew took issue with the overcapacitythat is sending a glut of steel, aluminum and other Chinese industrial goods onto global markets. Mr. Lou, China’s finance minister, said that he didn’t “feel any discomfort” with Mr. Lew’s criticisms and said that Beijing would rely on markets to deal with the capacity problems. He reminded reporters that the problem is rooted in the massive infrastructure-building program China launched following the global financial crisis in 2008. In the three years that followed, he said, China accounted for more than half of the world’s economic growth. “At the time, the world thanked China for boosting economic growth,” he said. “Now, the world is pointing fingers at China.”
*Note: Lew = U.S. Treasury Secretary