Lawmakers urge firm U.S. line on China in bilateral talks

[Politically_Incorrect12]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers influential on trade policy urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to press China in talks this week to halt the theft of intellectual property and curb practices that discriminate against American companies.

The letter to Obama cabinet officials on the eve of the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue contained a laundry list of complaints, from software piracy to market and regulatory barriers and forced technology transfer.

"We remain very concerned that China has halted - and in many cases reversed - its market reforms," the lawmakers said in the letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.

"China must move away from an economic model dominated by state-owned enterprises, trade-distorting subsidies, and economic protectionism," the bipartisan group wrote.

"The theft of proprietary information threatens to undermine our economic relationship, is unacceptable, and must stop," they said, noting that much of the theft was done by cyber means.

The lawmakers voiced support for the five-year-old Strategic and Economic Dialogue process between the world's two biggest economies, but said China has been "woefully inadequate and incomplete" in implementing past agreements and called for more U.S. scrutiny.

The letter was signed by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, a Republican; Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat; House Ways and Means Committee ranking Democrat Sandy Levin; and Senate Finance Committee ranking Republican Orrin Hatch.

The Obama administration must "use meaningful metrics to measure progress and to be aggressive in ensuring that China is fully implementing its commitments and doing so in a commercially meaningful way," said the letter.

Among the Chinese practices the lawmakers said required more U.S. pressure to change were "indigenous innovation" policies that require foreigners to transfer technology to China in order to sell into the market, unscientific barriers to beef and other farm goods and favoritism to China's state sector.

Read more at:  news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-urge-firm-u-line-china-bilateral-talks-000354207.html