Date: 24 May 2010.

Publication: The Huffington Post.

Authors: Daniel Michaeli and Joel Backaler.

Monday’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue between the United States and China provides the Obama administration with an opportunity to forge agreements in a number of areas of crucial significance for both U.S. economic competitiveness and strategic stability in Asia–but only if U.S. negotiators are willing to give non-headline topics the attention they deserve.

At this time of economic uncertainty, the future of the American economy is firmly linked to the ability of U.S. companies to compete for marketshare in China, the world’s fastest-growing market. So U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner’s agenda should not overstress the revaluation of China’s currency. Despite the degree of media attention paid to the issue, nearly 80% of U.S. firms in China don’t expect a revaluation to increase their profits, according to a recent American Chamber of Commerce in China survey. Rather, across a host of industries, Chinese commercial rules give domestic firms an unfair leg up over American ones, and this is the more significant reason U.S. companies have been unsuccessful in cracking the Chinese market.

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