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To: Uncle Frank who wrote (37299)	7/27/1999 9:54:00 AM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

US-China-Cdma Agree> July 27, 1999 Dow Jones Newswires China, U.S. Agree U.S.'s Daley To Visit Beijing This Yr BEIJING -- A senior U.S. Commerce Department official said Tuesday after a day of talks in Beijing that Sino-U.S. normal trade relations are back on track and Commerce Secretary William Daley will visit China later this year. But David Aaron, an undersecretary of the U.S. Commerce Department, told reporters after his talks with Chinese officials that his talks were about normal trade relations and that the stalled World Trade Organization accession came up only "tangentially." He said the U.S. hopes to resume talks on China's WTO accession, but he "got no particular indication as to what their timetable might be if any" in his talks with Chinese trade negotiator Shi Guangshen and other officials. The U.S. Trade Representatives Office, not the Commerce Department, has been taking the lead on Sino-U.S. negotiations over China's bid to join the Geneva-based trade rules organization. Talks have been stalled since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombed China's embassy in Belgrade. NATO said the bombing was a mistake, but China hasn't accepted U.S. explanations or apologies. Aaron said a date hasn't been set for Daley's visit, although the two sides have agreed to hold it this year, possibly as early as this fall. Daley, who last traveled to Beijing in late March with a delegation of U.S. business executives, will co-chair a meeting of the bilateral Commission on Commerce and Trade in the Chinese capital, Aaron said. "This is an important step which puts our commercial discussions firmly back on track," Aaron said. Aaron said that the committee has made important progress on a number of issues in the past year. He said it was instrumental in gaining an agreement from China to deploy the U.S. mobile phone standard code division multiple access, known as CDMA, and in securing licenses earlier this year for two more U.S. insurance companies to do business in China. Aaron's visit, he said, "will enable us to resume making that kind of progress." Some foreign industry executives have accused the government of being slow to implement their agreement to deploy CDMA. But Aaron, who also met with top officials from China's Ministry of Information Industry, said he felt the agreement was not threatened. "I believe the Chinese government has made a fundamental decision that they want CDMA for mobile telephony. They made that very clear," he said. But Chinese officials also made it clear that the CDMA decision is "related to china's accession to the WTO," Aaron said. "So I wouldn't be surprised if we need to see further progress on that front for some of these issues such as CDMA to go forward expeditiously." Aaron said WTO also came up in discussions over China's hopes that the U.S. will grant China permanent normal trading status - the new name for most favored nation trading status (NTR). U.S. President Bill Clinton has proposed NTR extension for China this year, and Aaron said he expressed confidence to Beijing that Congress wouldn't veto that decision. He also pointed out that once China enters the WTO, its will automatically be granted NTR on a permanent basis. Today's talks also covered the problem of $1.4 billion invested by U.S. companies in China United Telecommunications Co., or China Unicom. Those U.S. companies had skirted restrictions placed on foreign investment in Chinese telecommunications, and Beijing has since clamped down on these investments, leaving the companies little recourse to recoup their capital. The issue is a key hurdle to China Unicom's plans to list shares on overseas stock markets later this year. Aaron said China's officials view the issue as a negotiation between China Unicom and the foreign investors on how to "terminate those contracts." "This is not a debate about ideology or principal, it's a question of restructuring those relationships and going forward from there," Aaron said.