China Delays WTO Talks Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - "Henry C.K. Liu" Zhu: Time Not Ripe for Resumption of Sino-US Talks on WTO HONG KONG, Jun 4, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said Friday that the time was not ripe for a resumption of Sino-US talks on Beijing's long-standing bid to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO), local television said. Zhu was quoted as saying the message had been delivered to US President Bill Clinton during a recent telephone conversation with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The premier said at a meeting with Hong Kong Financial Secretary Donald Tsang that the present atmosphere "was not appropriate" to resume WTO-related talks with the United States. Zhu also said the dialogue could not continue if human rights were being linked to China's accession to the world trade watchdog. Sino-US relations have been strained since the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO forces last month. US and Chinese negotiators have not discussed China's WTO accession bid since the incident on May 7 which killed three Chinese journalists. The Cox report charging China with having stolen US nuclear weapons secrets has also set back Sino-US relations and is seen to have complicated the WTO talks. Even before the bombing, the United States and China were having trouble hammering out an accord under which Washington would back Beijing's entry into the Geneva-based trade body. The United States is pressing China for sweeping market-opening commitments before it extends its backing. Hong Kong's financial secretary told reporters the premier had told him how the Chinese economy was likely to fare this year. Tsang said Zhu had repeated assurances that the Chinese yuan would not be devalued. The Bank of China's move to stop overseas yuan remittances to domestic branches on Thursday sparked renewed worries of a yuan devaluation in regional financial markets. (c) 1999 Agence France Presse ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.06.99-12:05:47-672