Current American trade with China directly supports more than 200,000 manufacturing and service jobs. After China completes its accession to the WTO, increasing exports from America will add more job opportunities for U.S. labor. American manufacturing firms will rev up production lines and hire thousands of new employees in order to meet the expanding demand for airplanes, heavy machinery, autos and agricultural products, Cheng said. Economic reform and a new open door policy in the 1970s and 1980s by China's communist government aided the expansion of trade between the two nations. By 1998, U.S. became China's second largest trading partner, next only to Japan.
China is the fourth-highest nation receiving U.S. exports.
In the coming years, China's open door policy for foreign investment in telecommunications and financial services will offer U.S. firms a new opportunity to compete, Cheng said. American auto manufacturers and farmers should also benefit in the next decade as China lowers the tariffs places on imported products, he said. Tariffs on imported autos will drop from the current level of 80 to 100 percent to about 25 percent in 2006. Agricultural tariffs should drop to 14.5 percent or lower by 2004. More than half of the top 500 American corporations already have invested in China, Cheng said.