China Trade Talks Open With Warning

BEIJING â€”  Business leaders and officials from the United States and China warned at the opening session of a four-day trade conference Monday that policy disputes could upset nearly a decade of thriving trade between the two nations.

Delegates to the U.S.-China Joint Session on Industry, Trade and Economic Development at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People applauded the brisk growth in trade, but said that practices by both governments could stall commerce and investment.

“Substantial progress has been achieved in bilateral economic and technological cooperation and trade,� Li Lanqing, Chinese vice minister of foreign trade, told the conference, the largest since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1979. But “at the same time there are quite a few problems to be solved,� he said.

More than 1,000 Americans representing businesses ranging in size from large General Motors Corp. to smaller players such as Bagel Works Inc. came to meet representatives of Chinese industries.

Trade Restraints

The opening session began with a noisy welcome from a Chinese children’s drum and cymbal band, as well as greetings from President Reagan, Vice President George Bush and Chinese Premier Li Peng.

Reagan, in his message read by U.S. Ambassador Winston Lord, noted that bilateral trade reached $10.4 billion last year and was up 19% in the first quarter of this year, while U.S. businesses had invested $3 billion in China, more than in any other country except Hong Kong.

Chinese officials criticized the United States for blocking imports of Chinese commodities by failing to grant Beijing special trade status. They noted that restraints remain on U.S. transfers of technology to China.

“The U.S.-China trade relationship has run out of road map,� said Roger Sullivan, chairman of the National Council for U.S.-China Trade. “Neither China nor the United States can afford not to look at changing international realities,� he said.

While praising Beijing’s decade-long policy of freeing market forces and opening China to the outside world, U.S. speakers also complained of inadequate legal protection for copyrights, contracts, and investment, of unreasonable controls on foreign exchange and of difficulties in taking profits back home.

In its trade policies, warned former U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Edwin Dodd, “China must also play by the same rules as those of other nations.�

Conference participants will meet in group sessions to talk about topics ranging from contract negotiations and business laws to the status of China’s economic reforms, which have unshackled business from rigid state control.