China faces mounting pressure from trade disputes with the United States but there is no prospect of an all-out trade war between them, a Chinese official said in remarks reported on Tuesday.
Chinese vice minister for commerce Zhong Shan told a news conference in Britain on Monday that last year his country was hit by 116 trade protection cases, China Radio International reported on its Chinese-language website (http:gb.cri.cn).
US manufacturers in particular have complained for years that China holds down the yuan and unfairly subsidises production, giving its exports an unfair advantage. The Obama administration has said it will press Beijing to curb disputed trade policies.
While showing no sign of giving ground on Washington's key complaints, Zhong played down the risks of broader economic confrontation between the world's biggest and third biggest economies.
"It's true we're under a lot of pressure," he told the news conference in Birmingham, the report said.
"Trade disputes between China and the United States are increasing, but I'm confident this trade friction is not the dominant current of their bilateral trade," he added.
"Nor will this trade friction or disputes brew into a trade war between China and the US," he said.
Zhong's comments come at a time of broader tensions between Beijing and Washington, extending beyond trade and currency to include US weapons sales to Tibet and president Barack Obama's plans to meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by China as a "separatist."
Obama vowed last week to take up currency rates with economic partners such as China and to get tougher on trade to ensure US goods do not face a competitive disadvantage.
Annual Chinese exports to the United States could approach $300 billion in 2009 when final statistics are in, down from $338 billion in 2008, but a much smaller drop than for many other countries that export products to the US.
Zhong, the Chinese official, said his country also faced pressure on the yuan, but he repeated Beijing's position that its current exchange rate settings were right for China and for the world economy.
