Washington: Mitt Romney, a leading contender for securing the Republican presidential nomination for 2012 polls, has highlighted the need for adopting a tough stand against China over its aggressive economic policies and vowed that he would designate Beijing a “currency manipulator” if he is elected.
Accusing the Obama administration of being soft on Beijing, he said: “We need to make sure that we let them (China) understand that in order for them to continue to have free and open access to the thing they want so badly, our markets, they have to play by the rules.”
“…the policies of (President) Barack Obama in China have allowed China to continue to expand their entry into our computer systems,” Romney said at a Republican presidential debate on foreign policy, promising that on day one of his presidency, if he is elected, he would designate China as a currency manipulator. On that basis, the US can also go before WTO and bring an action against China as a currency manipulator, he said. “That allows us to apply selectively tariffs where we believe they are stealing our intellectual property, hacking into our computers or artificially lowering their prices and killing American jobs,” he said.
“We can’t just sit back and let China run all over us. People say, well, you’ll start a trade war. There’s one going on right now, folks. They’re stealing our jobs and we’re going to stand up to China,” Romney said.
Texas Governor Rick Perry said there are some people who have made the statement that the 21st century is going to be the century of China and that the US has had its time in the sunshine.
“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that at all. As a matter of fact, you think back to the 1980s, and we faced a similar type of a situation with Russia. And (the then President) Ronald Reagan said that Russia would end up on the ash heap of history, and he was right,” Perry said.(PTI)