摘要
应江泽民主席邀请,美国总统克林顿6月25日至7月3日对我国进行了为期9天的首次国事访问,取得了积极成果,这对跨世纪的中美两国双边关系尤其是经贸关系的发展具有重要的历史意义。
At the invitation of Chinese President Jiang Zemin, US President Clinton paid his state visit to China between June 25 and July 3. The 9-day visit turned out a great success and will be great significance to the development of bilateral Sino-US relations, especially Sino-US economic and trade relations in the turn of the century. A new stage of development of bilateral economic and trade relations The visit by Clinton to China has created many positive factors in the development of bilateral economic and trade relations between China and the United States in the future, especially in the turn of the century. 1. Notable cementation of the political foundation of bilateral economic and trade relations as a result of improvement of the political climate between the two countries. 2. Conclusion of trade agreements involving considerable business volumes. The United States has also announced new measures or expressed new stands for promoting bilateral trade. 3. Mutual promotion between expansion of bilateral trade and investment in China by US companies. 4. Expectable rise of level in technical trade due to relaxation of policy restrictions. 5. Future enhancement of strategic dialogues between China and the United States concerning bilateral, regional and global finance as a result of common understanding of issues relating to the Asian financial turmoil. Fairly big obstacles on the road ahead Although the United States expressed oral support to China's entry into the World Trade Organization, it has sticked to the position that China should not participate in this trade body as a developing country, which means China would be deprived of the rights as enjoyed by member countries that have joined it as deveioping countries. This runs counter to China's demand for a balance between rights and obligations which has been raised in line with the GATT spirit. Although Clinton expressed during his China visit a more positive attitude toward China's entry into WTO than before, he fell short of any practical actions. He merely made a small opening at most. What the United States concerns are issues of trade deficits. Although the purchases amounting to US$7 billion sealed during the visits of the heads of state of the two countries have alleviated somewhat their contradictions over this issue and the US relaxation of restrictions over technology export to China will help reduce deficits in US trade with China, no big changes in the imbalance of bilateral trade are perceivable in the immediate future. As the situation stands, the contradictions between China and the United States' about this issue will rise every now and then. Apart from the difference mentioned above, other conflicts exist between the two countries in the economic field, some overt and some covert. The issue concerning the protection of intellectual property rights, for instance, is one of them.
