US officials have been expressing anxiety over Chinese industrial overcapacity and runaway production by the largely state-owned steel sector and other heavy industry that Beijing has pledged to rein in, according to the Financial Times. Previewing the final “strategic and economic dialogue” with Chinese counterparts next week, Nathan Sheets, the US Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs, recently called for China to allow its industrial sectors “to better reflect capacity and global demand conditions.” For years, currency concerns were at the top of the agenda for US economic policymakers visiting Beijing, but chronic overcapacity has been blamed for a surge in cheap exports.
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