The Obama administration on Monday urged China to push further economic reforms with market forces playing a bigger role, which would help lead to a more balanced U.S.-China trade and investment relationship.
"If China is going to deal successfully with its increasing economic challenges at home, it must allow greater scope for market forces to operate, which requires altering the role of the state in planning the economy," the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said in its annual report to Congress on China's WTO compliance. "Otherwise, China's economic challenges will only increase and become more difficult to solve."
"Further economic reform in China also would provide strong benefits to the United States," the report said, adding it would help address the large role of state-owned enterprises in China's economy.
"At the same time, it would lead to more sustainable Chinese economic growth, which in turn would lead to increased U.S. exports to China and a more balanced U.S.-China trade and investment relationship while also helping to drive global economic growth," the report said.
U.S. exports of goods to China totaled 116 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, expanding 505 percent since China joining the WTO in 2001; while U.S. service exports to China reached 48 billion dollars in 2015, an increase of 802 percent since 2001, according to the USTR.
The report also said the Chinese government had taken many steps to implement its numerous commitments about its accession to the WTO over the past 15 years.
"These steps unquestionably deepened China's integration into the WTO's rules-based international trading system, while also strengthening China's ongoing economic reforms," the report said.
