Chinese and United States negotiators have apparently failed to reach an agreement in the long-running dispute over intellectual property rights, heightening the possibility that the US will announce a preliminary hit list of US$3 billion in sanctions on Chinese exports today.
White House spokesman Michael McCurry said Washington was preparing to release a list of sanctions although he added that the talks were still not completely over.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman yesterday said two days of consultations between Assistant US Trade Representative Lee Sands and his Chinese counterparts in Beijing had 'so far failed to yield any positive progress'.
'During the consultations, the Chinese side, with utmost sincerity, made clear the fact that it had already comprehensively fulfilled all its obligations under [last year's] Sino-US memorandum of understanding on IPR and had achieved considerable success in measures already implemented to protect IPR,' the spokesman, Cui Tiankai , said.
'The Chinese side also presented a number of additional measures it is willing to undertake. But as I understand, the US side did not respond favourably to the Chinese initiatives and the consultations have so far failed to yield any positive progress,' he said.
Mr Cui emphasised that he had not been present during the talks and could not make a definitive judgment on their outcome.
A US embassy spokesman yesterday refused to comment on the progress made.