China Committed to Addressing U.S. Concerns, Xi Says
September 23 2015 - 3:40PM
Dow Jones News
SEATTLE—The Chinese government is committed to addressing U.S.
concerns over market access and intellectual property, Chinese
President Xi Jinping told U.S. and Chinese business leaders
Wednesday in the first of a series of meetings designed to
highlight the benefits of commercial relations.
China would also maintain "relatively high" growth for a long
time, creating huge opportunities for U.S. technology and other
companies, Mr. Xi told 30 top U.S. and Chinese chief executives at
a roundtable in Seattle co-organized by the Paulson Institute.
"As our business ties deepen it is only natural to see frictions
and differences of one kind or another," Mr. Xi said in a speech
after listening to comments from some of the chief executives for
about half an hour.
"However, problems are always outnumbered by solutions," he
said. "Actually, some of the issues raised by the U.S., we want to
address through reform. We'll look into these issues and speedily
try to address as many as possible."
He added that Chinese companies wanted the U.S. to ease
restrictions on civilian high-tech exports to China and to lower
barriers to Chinese investment in the U.S. "We count on the U.S.
business community to play a positive role and make this a
reality," Mr. Xi said.
Among the 15 U.S. chief executives in attendance were Satya
Nadella of Microsoft Corp., Tim Cook of Apple Inc., Jeff Bezos of
Amazon.com Inc. and John Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc., an
indication of the emphasis China is placing on the technology
industry during the visit.
The 15 Chinese executives included Jack Ma of Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd., Pony Ma of Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Robin Li of
Baidu Inc.
China's tech industry was growing notably faster than the
average in the industrial sector and its 600 million Internet users
and 1.2 billion mobile phone users presented business opportunities
for companies such as Amazon, Cisco and Apple, Mr. Xi said.
"China's economic development will create and sustain an elastic
demand for technology capital and products of other countries," Mr.
Xi said.
Mr. Xi's visit comes at a time of mounting tension with the U.S.
over issues including alleged Chinese cyberattacks on U.S.
companies and government offices, and China's commitment to ease
restrictions on U.S. investment.
The Obama administration has been urging U.S. technology and
other companies to be more vocal about the problems they are facing
in China.
China, however, has been using the meetings with business
leaders in Seattle to highlight the positive aspects of commercial
ties, while playing down tensions in other areas ahead of Mr. Xi's
summit with President Obama on Friday.
"China will open up still wider to the outside world. Without
reform there will be no driving force. Without opening up there
will be no progress," Mr. Xi said.
"We are working to build a new open economic system and
promoting reform of the foreign investment management system and
significantly removing restrictions on market access for foreign
investment."
China wanted more cooperation with the U.S. in advanced
manufacturing, clean energy, environmental protection, finance, IT,
and modern agricultural infrastructure, and supported large U.S.
companies setting up regional headquarters in China, Mr. Xi
said.
He said China also wanted investment from smaller U.S. companies
and would "stand firm to protect" intellectual property rights.
"The newly established IPR courts are working smoothly. This
means there will be much stronger IPR protection which will serve
the interests of foreign businesses as well as Chinese
companies."
Former U.S. Treasury secretary Hank Paulson introduced Mr. Xi
and moderated the roundtable which was also attended by U.S.
Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Liu He, Mr. Xi's top economic
adviser.
Mr. Paulson said China and the U.S. both needed to carry out
structural reforms to move their economies onto a more
growth-conducive footing for the long term and to find ways to
address issues such as commercial cybertheft and climate
change.
"For U.S. companies pursuing foreign investments in China, they
must better understand potential obstacles such as standards that
might exclude U.S. products, challenges with intellectual property
protection, or new regulations for technology and data-sharing,"
Mr. Paulson said.
"We also discussed challenges to doing business in the U.S. We
need to find ways to encourage more job-creating investments from
China. And we need to fix some of our own flawed policies and
inefficiencies, especially through tax and fiscal reform."
Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 23, 2015 16:25 ET (20:25 GMT)
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