China slams U.S. for WTO complaint over piracy

BEIJING, April 24 Kyodo

A senior Chinese official on Tuesday criticized the United States for its complaint to the World Trade Organization over Chinese product piracy, saying it would harm trade ties.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, in charge of trade and foreign investment, said the United States has ignored major progress made by China to protect intellectual property rights in its ''unexpected'' appeal to the WTO.

The United States earlier this month requested the world trade body to help resolve what it sees as China's failure to adequately crack down on piracy. It filed a separate complaint claiming Chinese import barriers hamper the distribution of foreign books, music, videos and movies in the country.

But at a forum to discuss China's efforts to protect intellectual property, Wu defended Beijing's enforcement of trademark and copyright rules.

''Over the years, China's intellectual property rights work has been passed by the WTO and gained widespread approval from the majority of other countries, international organizations and national businesses,'' she said.

She told the forum that the U.S. action will have an extremely negative influence on bilateral trade relations and will also have a serious impact on intellectual property rights cooperation between the two sides.

''The Chinese government expresses its strong dissatisfaction, but we have decided to respond to the charges by following WTO principles,'' she added.

The vice premier said that during this century intellectual property will become the most important factor and financial resource in the economy, and will form the basis of a corporate competitiveness.

Wu is China's representative in the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, which was set up to discuss pressing and longer-term economic issues between the two trading partners.

The first meeting was held in Beijing last December, with the second meeting scheduled to take place in Washington next month.

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