| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
BEIJING : US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson began a second and last day of economic talks in Beijing on Thursday in the shadow of the worst violence in Tibet in decades.
Paulson, a former US investment banker with extensive experience in China, was greeted by several of his hosts as "an old friend," even though he raised the highly sensitive Tibet issue at least once on the first day of talks.
He is the first high-level US official to visit Beijing since protests over Chinese rule in Tibet descended into deadly violence nearly three weeks ago.
"As you might imagine, I expressed our concern about the violence and urged a peaceful resolution through dialogue," Paulson told reporters late Wednesday after meeting President Hu Jintao.
"I made that point, I felt, in a very appropriate way to the appropriate people," he added, but declined to say with whom he raised the issues.
US President George W. Bush had previously expressed concern in a telephone call to Hu about China's handling of the unrest.
Exiled Tibetan leaders say 135-140 people have died in the Chinese crackdown on the demonstrations. China insists it has acted with restraint and killed no-one, while blaming Tibetan rioters for the deaths of 20 people.
Paulson is in Beijing to lay the groundwork for a cabinet-level US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue in June in Washington. He is to meet Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday.
Although China may be embarrassed about having the Tibet issue raised in a forum dedicated to economic issues, local analysts said the momentum in the twice-yearly dialogue was unlikely to be affected.
"I think China will treat separately the talks on Tibet and the Strategic Economic Dialogue," said Han Xu, a Beijing-based political researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
For one thing, China's increasingly sophisticated diplomats are likely to understand very well the dynamics of US politics forcing Paulson to raise the Tibet issue on the trip, he said.
"It's imaginable that the US administration is under quite big pressure posed by the Congress. It's a traditional style of US politics," said Han.
On economic issues, Paulson said he told Hu he considered the recent appreciation of China's currency, the yuan, to be "very material progress," but that Beijing was still a way from a market-driven currency.
The US has been pushing China for a faster appreciation of the yuan, which was pegged to the dollar until July 2005 and now trades in a narrow band. It has appreciated about 18 per cent since then.
"The Chinese are not ready to have a market determined currency," Paulson said.
US critics have long argued that the yuan has been undervalued, giving Chinese exporters an unfair advantage and contributing to China's massive trade surplus with the United States.
In his meeting with Hu, one of the other agenda items was the turmoil in the US financial markets.
"I would say there is no doubt that what is happening in US markets clearly has to give the Chinese pause. They may be too polite to say that directly, but it clearly has to be giving them pause," he said.
In fact, Premier Wen did express Beijing's concerns over US economic problems, particularly the falling dollar, at a press conference following the end of China's annual session of parliament last month.
"I am paying great attention to the world economy, I am especially worried about the US economy," Wen said at the time.
"What I'm worried about is that the US dollar continues to depreciate. When will we see it hit the bottom? What kind of monetary policy will the US take and what direction will its economy take?"
In their Wednesday meeting, Hu told Paulson that China was willing to step up economic coordination with the United States, Chinese state television reported.
"We are willing to make efforts together to maintain global economic growth and keep global financial stability," Hu was quoted as saying.
- AFP/yb
|
