Premier Wen Jiabao called the recently concluded Strategic Economic Dialogue with the U.S. “fruitful,” but the New York Times headline says “Little Headway With China on Finance”:
Despite a number of concrete deals, American officials said they left the talks with lingering concern that China was increasingly using arcane regulations to keep out American products, from cellphones to insurance to motorcycles, and promote its own domestic economic “champions.”…
The biggest disappointment by the American delegation appeared to be the lack of progress on financial services. Though China pledged last spring to expand the scope for joint foreign and Chinese securities companies into brokerage and asset management, it has yet to carry out the pledge. [Full text]
And the Economist, in an article titled “Monologuing,” says, “The ‘Strategic Economic Dialogue’ fails to produce much strategy or dialogue.”
