UPDATE: China Says Protectionism Hurts China-U.S. Trade Ties

China says that the U.S. has increasingly fallen back on protectionism since the onset of the global financial crisis, which has affected trade relations between the two countries.

The comments, issued by China's Ministry of Commerce on Monday, show that trade relations between the world's biggest and third-largest economies are headed for further tensions this year as the Asian giant's economic recovery pushes more U.S. companies to seek protection.

The polemics also come at a time of an escalating political row between the two countries over Tibet and the U.S.'s arms sales to Taiwan.

"Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, trade protectionism obviously arose in the U.S. China has become the biggest victim of the U.S.'s misuse of trade remedy measures," ministry spokesman Yao Jian said in a statement.

Yao urged Washington to "fully realize how serious the problem is" and not to adopt any trade protectionism measures.

The U.S. recently imposed antidumping tariffs on China-made metal mash trays and electric blankets. It also said it was considering whether to impose countervailing and antidumping duties on imported Chinese-made drill pipe.

However, China also adopted anti-dumping measures against imports from the U.S. and other countries recently.

The Commerce Ministry said Sunday that anti-dumping measures will continue for five years for phenol imported from the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, after it said late December that it will extend by six months an anti-dumping investigation into European-made carbon steel fasteners.

It also made a preliminarily ruling in December that U.S. and Russian companies are dumping grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel, a product widely used in the power industry, and said it will require importers to pay deposits ranging from 10.7% to 25% to import the product from U.S. companies including AK Steel Corp. (AKS).

Despite the moves, Yao said that recent U.S. accusations that China sets barriers to market entry and foreign investments are "far from facts," and the government will strive to improve the investment environment for foreign and domestic investors.

"Some countries adopt trade protectionism now, but blame others instead. This is not only totally unreasonable but also harmful for their own economic recovery," Yao said.

Trade friction between the U.S. and China has been on the rise, especially since the former decided to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese tire exporters in September.

However, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in November that the U.S. isn't stepping up protectionism while U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk described the U.S. as the most open market in the world.

Both men, speaking with U.S. businessmen in Beijing as President Barack Obama visited China, were countering rising criticism from China over U.S. trade policies.

-Liu Li and Joy C. Shaw contributed to this article, Dow Jones Newswires; 8610-8400-7713; li.liu@dowjones.com

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