US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez held talks today with Chinese officials to press for more access to China's markets.
Mr Gutierrez met Commerce Minister Bo Xilai and is due to meet with Premier Wen Jiabao. Mr Gutierrez said ahead of the meetings that Washington wants China to grant US companies the same market access enjoyed by Chinese companies in the United States.
He said he also would bring up the status of China's crackdown on rampant product piracy and demands for Beijing to loosen tight currency controls.
The meeting come ahead of a possible Senate vote to sanction Beijing for allegedly manipulating its currency.
The US Senate faces deadline on Friday to vote on a proposal to impose 27.5 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods to pressure Beijing to raise the government-controlled exchange rate of its currency, which Washington and other trading partners say is too low and gives Chinese exporters an unfair trade advantage.
China allows the yuan to trade within a narrow band that is linked to a group of major currencies. The government dropped the yuan's peg to the US dollar last July and raised its exchange rate by about 2 per cent. The yuan has risen by nearly 1 per cent since then, but Washington and other trading partners want to see a much larger increase.
Mr Gutierrez warned in a speech at a Chinese university yesterday that Beijing risks inflaming protectionist sentiment in the United States if it lets its record trade surplus keep growing.
The administration of President Bush is under growing pressure from Congress to deal with a US trade deficit with China.
AP