THE US will renew China's Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trading status next year, predicts a senior American banker.
William Overholt, executive director of Bankers Trust Co, was addressing the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce yesterday for the launch of his new book: The Rise of China - the Next Economic Superpower. He said China was experiencing the greatest economic take-off in world history.
''This is an Asian economic take-off and if there is any fallacy in the West it is putting China in the context of the reforms in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,'' he said.
Mr Overholt said he was confident the US authorities would extend China's MFN status.
''They never want to take away MFN. They just want to threaten. They think they will get a lot by threatening.'' Mr Overholt said US officials were learning in Washington that there was no quick way to a free and democratic society in China. ''You can't just decree it overnight.'' He did not think that US President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Jemin would touch on the MFN issue during their summit meeting in Seattle.
But he said that if China moved ahead with the proposal to let the Red Cross into Chinese jails, helped to tackle nuclear proliferation in North Korea, and reached an understanding on its future missile sales, then President Clinton would have ''something positive to say''.
