In the face of growing international pressure, Chinese officials told top US officials on Friday that they would continue to push ahead with plans to float or revalue their currency, but avoided giving a date to begin the transformation.
This commitment fell short of the immediate action recommended this week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and of the demands being made by Democrats and Republicans alike. Some academic experts see reasons for China not to revalue.
Pressure has been building for the Chinese to announce a change at the meetings here of the IMF or at meetings with representatives of the G7 who met with China for the first time at a dinner on Friday. US Treasury Secretary John Snow said afterward that he told the Chinese that "we want the pace to accelerate."
Like the US, the other G7 members -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- have all said that continued, stable global economic growth requires China to relax its currency exchange rate immediately.
The dinner invitation has been seen as the first step for China's eventual inclusion in the group. And a senior Treasury official said after the dinner that the G7 would have more engagements with China.
In return, the industrialized world is hoping the Chinese will begin to adopt a more flexible currency exchange rate and start to right what is seen as an imbalance in global currency rates that has hurt Europe as well as the US.
Admission to the G7 would be the final confirmation that China's economic growth has lifted the country to the center of the global elite. The only Asian country in the group is Japan.
But in what is becoming a familiar ritual, China's first response on Friday was a joint communique promising greater efforts, but no timetable.
"The Chinese side reaffirmed China's commitment to further advance reform and to push ahead firmly and steadily to a market-based flexible exchange rate," the two nations said in the communique.
James Mann, a China expert and visiting academic at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies, said the Chinese had used this strategy for decades to avoid improving their policies on human rights in Tibet, missile nonproliferation and protecting intellectual property rights.
"They have a long track record of diverting attention away from doing something now or immediately by arriving at the beginning of a meeting and announcing what they plan to do way off in the future," Mann said. "Sometimes, in the end, they may actually do it."
Changing China's currency has become a focal point for those worried about the record US trade deficit and the loss of manufacturing jobs overseas. This week senior Democratic lawmakers filed a petition asking the administration to sue China at the World Trade Organization. The suit would contend that China's current inflexible exchange rate, 8.28 yuan to the dollar, amounts to unfair trading practices.
By pegging its currency to the dollar, China has kept the prices of its exports low and flooded the American market with cheap goods while keeping the price of imports high, choking competition, the lawmakers charged.
Also see story:
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
SILICON VALLEY HUB: The office would showcase Taiwan’s strengths in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and help Taiwanese start-ups connect with global opportunities Taiwan has established an office in Palo Alto, one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley in California, aimed at helping Taiwanese technology start-ups gain global visibility, the National Development Council said yesterday. The “Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley hub” at No. 299 California Avenue is focused on “supporting start-ups and innovators by providing professional consulting, co-working spaces, and community platforms,” the council said in a post on its Web site. The office is the second overseas start-up hub established by the council, after a similar site was set up in Tokyo in September last year. Representatives from Taiwanese start-ups, local businesses and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer