US Presses China To Reduce Barriers For Foreign Business

The AP said Chinese President Xi Jinping, while speaking at the event’s opening ceremony, “promised action on reducing overcapacity but announced no new initiatives”.

“The U.S. China economic relationship is the most important economic relationship in the world”, Lew said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speak during a climate change meeting Monday in Beijing, China.

China has become the dominant steel producer in the world, while American production has slumped, as domestic companies could not complete with the cheap imports offered by Chinese steel companies. Lew emphasized the positive during his final remarks, saying that Beijing has pledged to freeze capacity increases and weed out unprofitable “zombie companies”.

“While efforts over the past several days can not resolve our concerns, they do represent real progress”, said U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew.

He said China will rely on market forces and not government-set targets to cut excess production capacity, Xinhua said.

“It’s distorting their markets, it’s an impediment to medium and long-term growth”.

The U.S. and other countries feel Beijing has responded to a glut of unneeded supply by encouraging low-cost exports.

Kerry said he received assurances from Xi that China would remain open for business, and would continue opening itself up to the outside world.

Beijing widened access to its tightly regulated financial markets, offering USA investors a quota of 250 billion yuan ($38.1 billion) to buy Chinese stocks and bonds. Besides, they add, Chinese interlocutors preferred to delay signing agreements given the ongoing economic slowdown in China, and because a new administration in Washington is only a few months away. The general theme was built around “working together”.

USA officials have said a negative list that greatly reduces the number of off-limits sectors is critical to reaching a deal.

But analysts say the two sides have not bridged the gaps on this issue, with Chinese experts calling the U.S.

The SCS dispute has become a flash point between the two countries as the U.S. backed the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan to counter China’s claims of nearly all the SCS.

Meanwhile, Kerry also noted that experts from both countries will coordinate the implementation of sanctions against North Korea as adopted by the UN Security Council, while Yang reiterated China’s bid to find a peaceful solution to tensions in the peninsula. “But it still remains uncertain whether Washington will restrain its provocation on the South China Sea issue”. Chinese officials previously accused Washington of interfering in a matter that does not concern it and seeking to stir up trouble in the region to boost its own influence over other Asian countries.

China’s steel industry is huge, with national production growing sevenfold from 2000 to 2014 on the back of massive infrastructure investment in cities and as the government ploughed billions of dollars into heavy industry to counter the impact of the 2008 financial crisis.

Yang defended the law as necessary to protect the “legal rights and interests” of nongovernment groups.

Li Keqiang says China and the United States should jointly strive to deepen mutual trust and expand cooperation.

“The U.S. -China relationship is absolutely vital”, he said.