CHINA CALLS FOR BETTER TRADE DEAL WITH U.S. China called on the United States to remove curbs on its exports, to give it favourable trading status and ease restrictions on exports of high technology. But the U.S. Embassy replied that Chinese figures showing 13 years of trade deficits with the U.S. Out of the last 15 are inaccurate and said Peking itself would have to persuade Congress to change laws which limit its exports. The official International Business newspaper today published China's demands in a editorial to coincide with the visit of U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. "It is extremely important that the U.S. Market reduce its restrictions on Chinese imports, provide the needed facilities for them and businessmen from both sides help to expand Chinese exports," the editorial said. "The U.S. Should quickly discard its prejudice against favourable tariff treatment for Chinese goods and admit China into the Generalised System of Preference (GSP). "Despite easing of curbs on U.S. Technology exports in recent years, control of them is still extremely strict and influences normal trade between the two countries," it added The paper also printed an article by China's commercial counsellor in its Washington embassy, Chen Shibiao, who said that "all kinds of difficulties and restrictions" were preventing bilateral trade fulfilling its full potential. He named them as U.S. Protectionist behaviour, curbs on technology transfer and out-of-date trade legislation. The paper also printed a table showing that, since bilateral trade began in 1972, China has had a deficit every year except 1972 and 1977. It shows the 1986 and 1985 deficits at 2.09 billion and 1.722 billion dlrs. A U.S. Embassy official said the U.S. Did not accept Peking's trade figures at all, mainly because they exclude goods shipped to Hong Kong and then trans-shipped to U.S. While U.S. Figures are based on country of origin. He said that, if China wants to obtain GSP status, it will have to lobby Congress itself to persaude it to amend several laws which currently prevent Peking getting such status. The U.S. Trade Act of 1974 says that to qualify for GSP, China must be a member of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT), for which it applied in July 1986, and "not be dominated or controlled by international Communism." The official said China was well aware of the laws, some of which date to the anti-Communist early 1950's, but that there is not sufficient political will in the U.S. To change them. China has been the subject of about a dozen cases involving anti-dumping in the U.S. Within the last two years, which the U.S. Side won, he said. But, for the first time, China signed last week an agreement which it itself initiated to voluntarily restrain exports of at least two categories of steel goods, which may lead the U.S. Side to withdraw the anti-dumping case, he added. Another diplomat said willingness to provide such voluntary export restraints would be an important issue in bilateral trade issues and in Peking's application to GATT. "China has the potential to disrupt world markets, especially in textiles. Other GATT countries will be nervous about China in this respect. But there is a precedent for other centralled planned economies in GATT," the diplomat said. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania are members of GATT but none has China's massive market potential for imports or its vast labour pool to produce cheap exports. In a speech today in the northeast city of Dalian, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz said his country welcomed China's interest in participating in GATT. "The process of Chinese accession will not be accomplished overnight -- the GATT rules were not designed for a large economy of the Chinese type," Shultz said. "China can play an important role by actively joining GATT discussions seeking to expand general trading opportunities and enhance market access for exports worldwide. China can further develop its foreign trade system so as to gain the maximum benefit from its GATT participation," he said. The problems facing U.S.-China trade and GATT membership are similar -- a pricing system which many foreign businessmen regard as arbitrary and not related to actual costs, especially for exports, and a de facto dual currency system. In a memorandum backing its application presented to GATT last month, China said it was gradually reforming its economic system and replacing mandatory instruction with "guidance planning" and economic levers. The diplomat said that, to join GATT, China had much to do.