Beijing Sees Positive Signs in Trade Talks With U.S.

China expressed pleasure Sunday with the “positive tone” of its latest trade talks with Washington, saying it indicated the United States has finally realized the value of the Chinese economic relationship.

U.S. Deputy Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, who held two days of talks in Beijing last week, took a gentler tone than previous envoys, saying she was pleased with China’s “commitment to consult” on problems.

“Her words were a clear signal that the U.S. was shifting from scolding China to closer cooperation,” the official China Daily newspaper said Sunday.

President Clinton “has finally come to the conclusion that he must revive the U.S. economy--and that China is the market that will drive such a revival,” the paper said, attributing the view to “well-placed Chinese analysts.”

In fact, the United States is a much more important market to China than the other way around, with an estimated 30% of Chinese exports going to the United States.

The U.S. complaint is chiefly that China artificially keeps out American products through import barriers ranging from tariffs and quotas to secret regulations and licensing requirements.

A major item in Barshefsky’s talks was implementation of a market access agreement signed last year, which commits China to dismantle 90% of its import barriers within five years.

The United States says China has already missed an Oct. 10 deadline to liberalize standards for agricultural imports. China is supposed to liberalize quotas on a large number of items by Dec. 31, the next deadline.