Bush Urges China to Strengthen Currency

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President Bush on Thursday told a senior Chinese economic minister that the United States is "watching very carefully" whether Beijing will strengthen the value of its currency.

After a meeting with Vice Premier Wu Yi, the leader of the largest high-level Chinese delegation ever to visit the United States, Bush told reporters the U.S. is "making it clear to China that we value our relationship, but the $233 billion trade deficit must be addressed." Strengthening China's currency, he said, is one way to deal with the deficit.

"This is a complex relationship," Bush said. "There's areas where there's friction, and we just got to work through the friction."

A day after high-level economic talks with senior Bush administration officials, Wu planned meetings Thursday with frustrated congressional leaders. Discussions Wednesday failed to reach a breakthrough in the countries' biggest dispute: China's undervalued currency.

Many lawmakers are considering legislation that would punish Beijing for trade practices that they say have driven U.S. trade deficits to record levels and cost thousands of manufacturing jobs.

Bush, in his comments, urged China to open up financial markets to U.S. companies.

"Not only would it be beneficial to the United States, we happen to think it would be beneficial to the Chinese economy for the consumers to have different options when it comes to savings and purchases," Bush said.

He also called on China to open its market to U.S. beef. "They need to be eating U.S. beef. It's good for them. They'll like it," he said.

China has rejected U.S. requests that it accelerate the revaluing of its currency, the yuan, which American manufacturers contend is undervalued by as much as 40 percent. That makes Chinese products cheaper for Americans and U.S. goods more expensive in China.

After meetings Wednesday between lawmakers and Wu, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said the Chinese told lawmakers they needed more time to overhaul their currency system and make other changes.

Rangel, a Democrat, told reporters that his committee planned to move forward with legislation; some of the bills being considered would impose stiff penalties on Chinese imports.

Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading critic of China, described the frustration he said his colleagues felt. "There's never any action," he said in an interview. "I don't think a press release is going to assuage Congress' worries. We need results."

Despite the criticism, both Wu and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, head of the U.S. delegation at the talks, sounded positive about the importance of the new high-level "strategic economic dialogue" between the countries, which occur twice a year.

The delegations agreed to more than double the number of daily passenger flights between the two nations by 2012, going from 10 to 23. Cargo flights also were increased. The gains fell short of the openings the Bush administration had hoped to achieve.

In the area of financial services, China agreed to a slight expansion in business opportunities for U.S. companies but not the lifting of caps on foreign ownership of banks, securities firms and insurance companies that U.S. firms had sought.

For her part, Wu said it was important to continue direct consultations between the two nations rather than resorting to "threat and sanctions."

U.S. business groups had a decidedly more downbeat response.

"It's clear that this dialogue has been nothing but a cynical Bush administration exercise in spin and public relations," said Kevin Kearns, president of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents small and medium-size manufacturing companies. "The failure of the White House's approach is now clear, so the ball is clearly in Congress' court."