Boeing Backs Trade Status For China Company Wants Most Favored Nation Status Of Major Customer To Be Permanent

The Boeing Co. wants the United States to grant permanent mostfavored-nation trading status to China, one of the aerospace giant’s biggest customers, according to a top company executive.

“We don’t require a congressional vote each year to continue trading with Canada, Britain or Japan. That would be preposterous,” said Ray Waldmann, the company’s vice president of international business. “But that’s how we treat China.”

Waldmann delivered his strongly worded message Sunday at the conclusion of a major trade convention that drew to Seattle a group of 200 Chinese delegates - China’s largest trade mission to the United States this year - to seek U.S. investors and contractors for about 100 major Chinese infrastructure projects.

The Chinese mission to the World of Concrete Exposition’s Sino-American Trade Fair came as relations between the United States and China continued to deteriorate.

Last week, China accused two U.S. Air Force officers of spying and detained them for a week before expelling them. That incident followed the arrest of Chinese-American rights activist Harry Wu last month and the controversial visit of Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to the United States in June.

Executives at Boeing, which delivered one out of every seven aircraft it built last year to Chinese airlines, fear the political row between the two countries will threaten business prospects in its third-largest market after Japan and the United Kingdom.

Last month, the Chinese government warned Ron Woodard, president of Boeing’s Commercial Airplane Group, that U.S. business will be punished if the United States fails to address concerns that it is straying from its long-standing policy of recognizing Beijing as the only legitimate government of China.

Congress recently voted to extend for another year most-favored-nation trading status to China, which is the world’s 10th-largest trading nation and bought $10 billion worth of U.S. exports last year.

The Chinese government has predicted that the nation’s airlines will spend $45 billion over the next 15 years to keep up with growing travel demand.