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ON March 9, 2o11, U.S. president Barack Obamanoininated Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as thenew U.S. ambassador to China. It has been publiclyspeculated that the appointment reflects the seri-ousness with which the Obama administration is taking theeconomic and trade relationship with China. Douglas Paal, vicepresident of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,said sending a sitting cabinet member is a signal from Obamaabout China’s strategic importance in his political universe.
As two countries with significant influence, China and theU.S. play exemplary roles in the international community. Afterthree decades of spectacular growth, China has become theworld’s second-largest economy, so its dialogue with the U.S.,the world’s largest economy, serves as a weather vane to the international community. Their dialogues are supposed to touchupon an extensive range of issues so that the two countries canmake joint efforts to cope with existing problems.
China and the U.S. have had nearly 7o high-level dialogues,covering a wide range of concerns to bilateral relations. Whileattending APEC’s informal leadership meeting in Chile in2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao’s suggestion to U.S. President Bush that the two contries hold a strategic dialogue metwith a positive response, and the U.S.launched the first round in August2005, where security issues dominated the agenda.
Chinese vice premier Wu Yi andU.S. Secretary of Treasury HenryPaulson held a China-U.S. StrategicEconomic Dialogue in September2006 in Beijing. Altogether sixChina-U.S. Strategic Dialogues andfive China-U.S. Strategic EconomicDialogues were conducted during thejunior Bush’s administration.
China believes two features countin such talks. First, the most significant issues are discussed froman overall perspective rather thana focus on specific topics. A strategic dialogue aims at analyzing thebroadest contexts and deep underlying causes and their connections,then working out solutions basedon this broader framework. Second,a strategic dialogue is conducted ata relatively high level, which meansparticipating officials need to havesufficient status in a nation’s policy-making system and its ownstrategic thinking.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao met U.S. PresidentObama during the G20 Financial Summit in London in 2009,both sides agreed to merge the two dialogues into the China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED).
The new dialogue mechanism is comprised of a strategictrack and an economic track. Its participants are also of thehighest rank: Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and StateCouncilor Dai Bingguo co-chair the dialogue with U.S. Seeretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the TreasuryTimothy Geithner.
The first meeting was held in Washington in 2009. Thesecond meeting, held in Beijing in 9OLO, produced 26 specificoutcomes. In the latter the U.S. pledged to seriously consider the issue of China’s market economy status and speed up theprocess of acknowledging that status.
The S&ED continues to play an important role in furtherpromoting the bilateral relations.
Global Impact
Both China and the United States have attached great importance to the dialogue. The head of the host country gives theopening speech and over 5o ministerial officials in charge ofthe two countries respective sectors attend the meetings.
The topics cover bilateral and multilateral issues as wellas long-standing and emerging problems. Topics that involveseveral sectors facilitate better teamwork. For example, antiterrorism is a security issue, but it requires coordination ofthe treasury departments of both nations since "following themoney" and cutting off its supply is critical.
Standing at a historical crossroads, the third round of theS&ED is expected to have a deeper and wider impact on bilateral relations than ever before. Sino-U.S. relations have chilleda little over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Obama’s meeting withthe Dalai Lama, and Google’s withdrawal from the Chinesemainland. Decisive action was needed to restore a positiveagenda. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the UnitedStates in January this year brought the derailed Sino-U.S. relationship back to normal. Trust between the two natious hasbeen restored and the tone of the relationship has been reset,so the future of its progress on a more certain track. In a spiritof mutual respect and cooperation, China and the U.S. issued ajoint statement agreeing to build a comprehensive and mutually beneficial partnership.
The riots in the Middle East and North Africa, regime changesin Tunisia aud Egypt, and the civil war in Libya signal changesare coming to those regions. Moreover, the situation on theKorean Peninsula is tense and the Iran nuclear issue makes noprogress. The global economy has not even completely recoveredfrom the financial crisis, yet the world must face challenges likeclimate change and rising food and oil prices.
S&ED’s outcomes will definitely impact G2o summit policies promoting coordination and cooperation between developed countries and developing countries, the elimination oftrade protectionism, facilitation of innovation in the financialsystem, and reform of the international monetary system.
Dialogue Hot Spots
The dialogue’s strategic track will probably reach principledconsensuses on some of the issues such as global economicresurgence, world economic balancing, cooperation of the twocountries in new energy resources and related issues. Two topics promise to be the hot center of negotiations.
Currency appreciation cure for trade imbalance-ared herring
The China-U.S. trade volume reached US $3o0 billion in2010 while China’s trade surplus stood at US $2.50 billion.The figure may trigger U.S. trade protectionism, but China isthe fastest growing market for U.S. exports. However, China doesn’t seek a trade surplus. A trade surplus with the U. S. doesnot accrue to China but is re-distributed on a regional basis, asa result of the international division of labor and trade balance.
An illustration of the problem printed in the WashingtonPost is a popular example: though an iPhone is sold at US$6oo, less than one third of the profit goes to componentsuppliers and assemblers. Only few dollars are paid to Chinese assemblers, far less than to the component suppliers inJapan, South Korea and Germany. For most products, thebeginning and the end parts of the process make the biggestcontribution: research & development, along with distribution, sales and serwices, share the greatest part of the profits.Trade surpluses with the U.S. produced by Chinese manufacturing and assembly are being redistributed to China’s othertrading partners like Japan and South Korea. Some thingspromise to change this situation; the U.S. should relax restrictions over technology exports to China and acknowledge itsmarket economy status so as to create a healthy environmentand expand trade on both sides of the Pacific.
But the U.S. holds that China obtains a competitive advantage in trade via its lower currency value, which causes thetrade imbalance between China and U.S. Consequently, insome American political and academic circles there is a call forRMB appreciation. However, the RMB’s value is not the reasonfor the weak competitiveness of the U.S. economy or its dwindling employment opportunities. Take the currency fluctuationbetween the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen for example; the yenwas under heavy pressure and appreciated sharply against theU.S. dollar in 1985, but a favorable balance of trade between,Japan and U.S. did not decrease to any real extent in the following decade. Although some conventional export productsshrunk due to the change in competitive conditions, the exportof high-tech products kept growing. Moreover, due to Japan’slong-term economic downturn, it was impossible to increaseits importation from the U.S. The trade imbalance between theU.S. and Japan hasn’t fundamentally changedand this is concealed by the trade imbalancebetween the U.S. and China. The internationaleconomic imbalance is rooted in the imbalancesof U.S. macroeconomic policy, the savings andconsumption ratio, a loose monetary policy,rampant financial speculation and weak supervision of markets.
Whenever a great power is rising, its currency becomes more valuable. The RMB exchange rate against the US dollar has increasedover five percent since 2005. The figure was3.5 percent in 2010 alone. Therefore, the RMBshould be able to sustain a reasonable level ofappreciation in the future. The issue of the RMBexchange rate is a matter of China’s monetarysovereignty. The appreciation is bringing aboutheavy pressure on China’s export enterprises.Accordingly, the room to appreciate should be based on China’s assessment and judgment onthe current situation. In a sense, China’s enterprises face enormous pressure to make profitswhile trying to mitigate a severe unemploymentsituation, which has objectively restrained thegovernment from appreciating the RMB in thewake of the yen’s appreciation. A gradual andcontrolled appreciation in 2005 was key to upgrading the industrial structure of China’s exports. To balance bilateral trade, many choicesexist other than currency appreciation. Forexample, boosting product price by factor price(salaries and other costs) would not only expandChina’s import demands, but also eliminate itsoutdated production capacity and reduce theexport scale of low efficiency products.
Cooperation in the field of new energy
Every country is anxious about energy security as oil prices keep rising and oil regions experience social turbulence, besides which, climatechange and environmental pollution are propelling the development of green energy the worldover. Being major energy consumers, China andthe U.S. share extensive common interests.
On Obama’s visit to China in 2009, the twonations agreed to work together in research and development ofnew energy. Though China’s fast-growing market in new energyprovides favorable opportunities for bilateral cooperation inthis field, there are many obstacles to cooperation. In 2010, theUnited States carried out a number of anti-dmnping measuresagainst Chinese new energy products. Clearly, more vigorous efforts need to be made to enhance mutual trust of the two sides.
S&ED may also discuss the issue of management competition so as to avoid descent into a global zero-sum game.
Both nations have their hopes riding on the dialogue.
As two countries with significant influence, China and theU.S. play exemplary roles in the international community. Afterthree decades of spectacular growth, China has become theworld’s second-largest economy, so its dialogue with the U.S.,the world’s largest economy, serves as a weather vane to the international community. Their dialogues are supposed to touchupon an extensive range of issues so that the two countries canmake joint efforts to cope with existing problems.
China and the U.S. have had nearly 7o high-level dialogues,covering a wide range of concerns to bilateral relations. Whileattending APEC’s informal leadership meeting in Chile in2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao’s suggestion to U.S. President Bush that the two contries hold a strategic dialogue metwith a positive response, and the U.S.launched the first round in August2005, where security issues dominated the agenda.
Chinese vice premier Wu Yi andU.S. Secretary of Treasury HenryPaulson held a China-U.S. StrategicEconomic Dialogue in September2006 in Beijing. Altogether sixChina-U.S. Strategic Dialogues andfive China-U.S. Strategic EconomicDialogues were conducted during thejunior Bush’s administration.
China believes two features countin such talks. First, the most significant issues are discussed froman overall perspective rather thana focus on specific topics. A strategic dialogue aims at analyzing thebroadest contexts and deep underlying causes and their connections,then working out solutions basedon this broader framework. Second,a strategic dialogue is conducted ata relatively high level, which meansparticipating officials need to havesufficient status in a nation’s policy-making system and its ownstrategic thinking.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao met U.S. PresidentObama during the G20 Financial Summit in London in 2009,both sides agreed to merge the two dialogues into the China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED).
The new dialogue mechanism is comprised of a strategictrack and an economic track. Its participants are also of thehighest rank: Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and StateCouncilor Dai Bingguo co-chair the dialogue with U.S. Seeretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the TreasuryTimothy Geithner.
The first meeting was held in Washington in 2009. Thesecond meeting, held in Beijing in 9OLO, produced 26 specificoutcomes. In the latter the U.S. pledged to seriously consider the issue of China’s market economy status and speed up theprocess of acknowledging that status.
The S&ED continues to play an important role in furtherpromoting the bilateral relations.
Global Impact
Both China and the United States have attached great importance to the dialogue. The head of the host country gives theopening speech and over 5o ministerial officials in charge ofthe two countries respective sectors attend the meetings.
The topics cover bilateral and multilateral issues as wellas long-standing and emerging problems. Topics that involveseveral sectors facilitate better teamwork. For example, antiterrorism is a security issue, but it requires coordination ofthe treasury departments of both nations since "following themoney" and cutting off its supply is critical.
Standing at a historical crossroads, the third round of theS&ED is expected to have a deeper and wider impact on bilateral relations than ever before. Sino-U.S. relations have chilleda little over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Obama’s meeting withthe Dalai Lama, and Google’s withdrawal from the Chinesemainland. Decisive action was needed to restore a positiveagenda. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the UnitedStates in January this year brought the derailed Sino-U.S. relationship back to normal. Trust between the two natious hasbeen restored and the tone of the relationship has been reset,so the future of its progress on a more certain track. In a spiritof mutual respect and cooperation, China and the U.S. issued ajoint statement agreeing to build a comprehensive and mutually beneficial partnership.
The riots in the Middle East and North Africa, regime changesin Tunisia aud Egypt, and the civil war in Libya signal changesare coming to those regions. Moreover, the situation on theKorean Peninsula is tense and the Iran nuclear issue makes noprogress. The global economy has not even completely recoveredfrom the financial crisis, yet the world must face challenges likeclimate change and rising food and oil prices.
S&ED’s outcomes will definitely impact G2o summit policies promoting coordination and cooperation between developed countries and developing countries, the elimination oftrade protectionism, facilitation of innovation in the financialsystem, and reform of the international monetary system.
Dialogue Hot Spots
The dialogue’s strategic track will probably reach principledconsensuses on some of the issues such as global economicresurgence, world economic balancing, cooperation of the twocountries in new energy resources and related issues. Two topics promise to be the hot center of negotiations.
Currency appreciation cure for trade imbalance-ared herring
The China-U.S. trade volume reached US $3o0 billion in2010 while China’s trade surplus stood at US $2.50 billion.The figure may trigger U.S. trade protectionism, but China isthe fastest growing market for U.S. exports. However, China doesn’t seek a trade surplus. A trade surplus with the U. S. doesnot accrue to China but is re-distributed on a regional basis, asa result of the international division of labor and trade balance.
An illustration of the problem printed in the WashingtonPost is a popular example: though an iPhone is sold at US$6oo, less than one third of the profit goes to componentsuppliers and assemblers. Only few dollars are paid to Chinese assemblers, far less than to the component suppliers inJapan, South Korea and Germany. For most products, thebeginning and the end parts of the process make the biggestcontribution: research & development, along with distribution, sales and serwices, share the greatest part of the profits.Trade surpluses with the U.S. produced by Chinese manufacturing and assembly are being redistributed to China’s othertrading partners like Japan and South Korea. Some thingspromise to change this situation; the U.S. should relax restrictions over technology exports to China and acknowledge itsmarket economy status so as to create a healthy environmentand expand trade on both sides of the Pacific.
But the U.S. holds that China obtains a competitive advantage in trade via its lower currency value, which causes thetrade imbalance between China and U.S. Consequently, insome American political and academic circles there is a call forRMB appreciation. However, the RMB’s value is not the reasonfor the weak competitiveness of the U.S. economy or its dwindling employment opportunities. Take the currency fluctuationbetween the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen for example; the yenwas under heavy pressure and appreciated sharply against theU.S. dollar in 1985, but a favorable balance of trade between,Japan and U.S. did not decrease to any real extent in the following decade. Although some conventional export productsshrunk due to the change in competitive conditions, the exportof high-tech products kept growing. Moreover, due to Japan’slong-term economic downturn, it was impossible to increaseits importation from the U.S. The trade imbalance between theU.S. and Japan hasn’t fundamentally changedand this is concealed by the trade imbalancebetween the U.S. and China. The internationaleconomic imbalance is rooted in the imbalancesof U.S. macroeconomic policy, the savings andconsumption ratio, a loose monetary policy,rampant financial speculation and weak supervision of markets.
Whenever a great power is rising, its currency becomes more valuable. The RMB exchange rate against the US dollar has increasedover five percent since 2005. The figure was3.5 percent in 2010 alone. Therefore, the RMBshould be able to sustain a reasonable level ofappreciation in the future. The issue of the RMBexchange rate is a matter of China’s monetarysovereignty. The appreciation is bringing aboutheavy pressure on China’s export enterprises.Accordingly, the room to appreciate should be based on China’s assessment and judgment onthe current situation. In a sense, China’s enterprises face enormous pressure to make profitswhile trying to mitigate a severe unemploymentsituation, which has objectively restrained thegovernment from appreciating the RMB in thewake of the yen’s appreciation. A gradual andcontrolled appreciation in 2005 was key to upgrading the industrial structure of China’s exports. To balance bilateral trade, many choicesexist other than currency appreciation. Forexample, boosting product price by factor price(salaries and other costs) would not only expandChina’s import demands, but also eliminate itsoutdated production capacity and reduce theexport scale of low efficiency products.
Cooperation in the field of new energy
Every country is anxious about energy security as oil prices keep rising and oil regions experience social turbulence, besides which, climatechange and environmental pollution are propelling the development of green energy the worldover. Being major energy consumers, China andthe U.S. share extensive common interests.
On Obama’s visit to China in 2009, the twonations agreed to work together in research and development ofnew energy. Though China’s fast-growing market in new energyprovides favorable opportunities for bilateral cooperation inthis field, there are many obstacles to cooperation. In 2010, theUnited States carried out a number of anti-dmnping measuresagainst Chinese new energy products. Clearly, more vigorous efforts need to be made to enhance mutual trust of the two sides.
S&ED may also discuss the issue of management competition so as to avoid descent into a global zero-sum game.
Both nations have their hopes riding on the dialogue.