Beijing, July 15 (DPA) The US Wednesday urged China to do more to open its economy to free trade and allow greater flexibility in its currency exchange rate.
“If China allowed for greater flexibility in its exchange rate and further opened up its domestic markets for imports and foreign direct investment, it would accelerate the world’s return to growth,” US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke said in a speech in Beijing.

Locke said China was continuing to subsidise domestic firms unfairly, making only limited progress on protecting intellectual property, maintaining barriers to foreign businesses and needed “a recommitment to enforcing international trade laws and agreements”.

“Unfairly subsidising domestic companies or denying multinational companies access to local markets and government procurement contracts has the potential to be a serious threat to trade cooperation,” he told members of the American Chamber of Commerce and the US-China Business Council.

Locke conceded that China had made “tremendous strides” in protecting intellectual property (IP) in recent years.

“However, American companies in fields as diverse as energy, technology, entertainment and pharmaceuticals still lose billions of dollars every year in China from IP theft,” he said.

US critics say slow appreciation of China’s undervalued currency gives it an unfair economic advantage by making its exports cheaper and fuelling its large trade surplus.

Locke is visiting China, along with US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, in a delegation to discuss climate change with Chinese officials.

The three-day visit by Locke and Chu precedes a Sino-US strategic dialogue in Washington later this month, with the two nations still at loggerheads over reductions in carbon emissions.

China insists on keeping the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” under a UN framework, with developed nations taking the lead on emissions reductions.

But Locke Wednesday reiterated the US position that large developing nations such as China and India must also play an important part in curbing global carbon emissions.

“It’s been said that it’s unjust to ask China and other developing nations to drastically reduce their carbon emissions, when countries like the US have spent 150 years using coal, oil and other dirty fuels to grow their economies,” Locke said.

“That’s an understandable point, but one of no concern to Mother Nature,” he said.

“She doesn’t discriminate between carbon that comes from the US or China, Europe or India. And she will ignore attempts to explain the sins of the future by pointing out sins others made in the past,” he said.

The US and the European Union filed complaints with the World Trade Organisation in June over China’s restrictions of exports and hoarding of nine raw materials used by the steel, aluminium and chemical industries.

Other recent trade disputes cover issues including US limits on Chinese poultry and steel imports.