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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (1852)	12/10/2003 12:28:41 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

A U.S. muddle on China trade Louis Uchitelle NYT Wednesday, December 10, 2003 NEW YORK After the opening speeches, the 50 or so American executives gathered at the Hotel Pennsylvania here were invited to divide up. . Those interested in investing in China - putting an operation there and hiring Chinese workers - were to go across the hall to the Penntop North conference room. Those who wanted help in exporting to China were to stay seated in Penntop South. . Half or more went across the hall. . Given the explosion of business in China, the interest in setting up shop there is not surprising. What was surprising was the presence of the U.S. Commerce Department at the conference. While the Bush administration complains about China unfairly tilting trade dealings to its advantage, the government agency most responsible for promoting American business is participating in conferences and workshops that encourage American companies to put operations and jobs in China. . The seeming contradiction reflects the diffident U.S. response to China's rise as an economic power. At a White House meeting Tuesday, President George W. Bush pressed the visiting Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, to let the value of the yuan rise, a step that would make American operations in China marginally more expensive. Washington has also threatened to impose tariffs on a few Chinese products, another marginal step unlikely to make much of a dent in America's $100-billion-a-year trade deficit with China. . Similarly, the Commerce Department often sends its representatives to events like the one at the Hotel Pennsylvania last month but dulls their pro-export message by delivering it at conferences dominated by Chinese delegations urging American companies to invest in China, not export. . "We tell these groups that we are there to talk about exporting and they can put us on their program as acting in cooperation with them," said William Spitler, chief of the Commerce Department's New York office and a speaker himself at some of the conferences. "We make it clear that we are not sponsors, but every organization does not concisely phrase everything the way they should." The Commerce Department was listed as a host of the two-day "Economic and Trade Conference" at the Hotel Pennsylvania. In an opening speech, a Commerce Department representative, Spencer Ross, pushed exports. But most of the speakers were Chinese, promoting what Shen Liguo, vice governor of Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China, described as "Northeast China's beautiful prospects." . "We are going to absorb a lot of foreign investment," especially from the United States, he said, adding in his talk that acquisitions and mergers involving foreign companies were being encouraged "to bring about development" of the area. . The Chinese often pay the bill, or much of the bill, for their missions to the United States. That was the case at an all-day workshop at the Waldorf-Astoria last week, convened to encourage American companies to take space and set up operations in a complex of buildings now rising in central Beijing. The complex will house what the speakers billed as a rapidly emerging financial center, eventually rivaling not just Shanghai but also Wall Street in importance. . Beijing Finance Street Holding promoted and paid for the Waldorf event, "to send you the message that a great historical opportunity and a tremendous business market are appearing in China, in Beijing," Wang Gongwei, chairman of the holding company, told the 200 or so attendees in a luncheon speech. . For this event, the Commerce Department was described by the Chinese as a co-sponsor, and its representative, once again Ross, acted as moderator, speaking briefly at the outset about the virtues of exporting from the United States. He remained quietly on the dais through the longer Chinese speeches. . Ross is chairman of the New York District Export Council, a regional group whose members are appointed by the Commerce Department to help disseminate its message. . Mary Brown Brewer, a Commerce Department spokeswoman, said that the agency "piggybacks" on such events because it does not have enough budgeted funds to stage conferences and workshops of its own to promote exports to China of merchandise made in America. . While Wang's real estate development company picked up the tab for the Waldorf conference, an American real estate developer, William May International, paid a significant share of the expenses for the Hotel Pennsylvania gathering. . China's economic gains have aroused anger among Americans who see it as another Japan, stripping away U.S. jobs while barring the door to U.S. exports. But while the Japanese built up their trade surpluses in the 1980's by shipping goods made by Japanese companies, the Chinese are luring U.S. companies to set up operations in China, often at the expense of employment at home. . The New York Times iht.com