China to buy more US goods

BEIJING -- China will buy more American-made products and crack down harder on people who steal intellectual property, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said yesterday amid growing discontent in the United States over a soaring trade deficit with Beijing.

"We are ready to expand our imports from the US to improve the trade imbalance," said spokeswoman Jiang Yu. "At the same time, we hope the US can relax its controls on high technology to China."

China frequently complains that American export controls prohibit the transfer of high-technology products.

Jiang said that China is also in the process of improving its legal system to better deal with violators of intellectual property rights.

The US government said this week that its trade deficit set a record for a fifth consecutive year and the imbalance with China soared to $232.5 billion.

Jiang commented in response to a question about a plan by a trio of senators to introduce legislation that would strip China of its permanent normal trade status with this country.