An unnamed senior US Treasury official, in London yesterday at
the Group of Seven (G7) meeting of finance ministers, said the US
Treasury Undersecretary had called moves to coerce China to revalue
its currency counterproductive.
John Taylor was reported to have "acknowledged that there are
some initiatives in Congress that would not be productive toward
moving forward," during a meeting with Finance Minister Jin
Renqing earlier on Friday.
At least a dozen senators from both President George W. Bush's
Republican Party and the opposition Democrats have agreed to
co-sponsor a bill that would give China a six-month deadline to
revalue the yuan or face a 27.5 percent tariff on all its exports
to the US.
"There are some pressures in Congress that would move back the
economic and financial diplomacy that has moved forward," the
anonymous US official said, "The path we are on is bearing results.
The path we've chosen is the right path."
In earlier remarks to reporters, Taylor appealed to China to
"move as quickly as possible towards a flexible exchange
rate."
But he added: "Our discussions with the Chinese have been good and
candid."
Taylor had stood in for Treasury Secretary John Snow, absent
with a chest cold.
At a Foreign Ministry
press briefing on February 3, spokesperson Kong Quan said the move
by some US senators cannot help resolve differences between
the?two countries.
"Every country's economic and financial policies are established
and implemented in accordance to their own specific situations," he
said.
(China Daily February 5, 2005)