960404

China urges

copyright row

settlement on

'equal footing'

BEIJING: China urged the United States on Thursday to seek a settlement to a long-running dispute on copyright piracy "on an equal footing," as negotiators from the two sides held talks on the issue here.

"We hope that the two sides will conduct their dialogue and consultations on this issue and seek the settlement of their differences on an equal footing," foreign ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said at a regular news briefing.

Shen was responding to a question on Sino-US talks here aimed at settling a dispute over US allegations that China has failed to implement a bilateral agreement on protecting intellectual property rights (IPR), signed on February 26, 1995, averting a damaging trade war. Assistant US Trade Representative Lee Sands arrived here Wednesday for a week of negotiations with Chinese foreign trade officials.

Shen said the Chinese side was expecting Lee to be joined Monday by his boss, US Deputy Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. The US embassy has said that Barshefsky is "tentatively" expected here Monday, but added that it was unclear whether the death of US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown Wednesday would result in a postponement of the trip.

The latest talks are being held under the shadow of a revived US threat to impose one billion dollars' worth of sanctions if Beijing fails to make rapid progress in implementing the two sides held talks on the issue here.

"We hope that the two sides will conduct their dialogue and consultations on this issue and seek the settlement of their differences on an equal footing," foreign ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said at a regular news briefing.

Shen was responding to a question on Sino-US talks here aimed at settling a dispute over US allegations that China has failed to implement a bilateral agreement on protecting intellectual property rights (IPR), signed on February 26, 1995, averting a damaging trade war.

Assistant US Trade Representative Lee Sands arrived here Wednesday for a week of negotiations with Chinese foreign trade officials.

Shen said the Chinese side was expecting Lee to be joined Monday by his boss, US Deputy Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. The US embassy has said that Barshefsky is "tentatively" expected here Monday, but added that it was unclear whether the death of US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown Wednesday would result in a postponement of the trip.

The latest talks are being held under the shadow of a revived US threat to impose one billion dollars' worth of sanctions if Beijing fails to make rapid progress in implementing the deal.

China has rejected the US allegations that, while Chinese police have cracked down on traders of pirated goods, the production situation has actually deteriorated over the past year with the number of compact disc plants rising from 29 to 34.

US officials say all the plants are engaged in piracy and that their shift to increasingly high-priced items pushed up the value of US firms' losses to piracy in China in 1995 above 1994's 866 million dollars.-AFP