Patience over China is wearing thin in US businesses: Raimondo

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned China in an interview broadcast on Sunday (September 3) that the patience of US businesses was "wearing thin". She said that American companies were deserving of a "predictable environment and a level playing field".

The world's two biggest economies once used to be each other's largest trading partners. But now the US trades more with Canada and Mexico than China while Beijing trades more with Southeast Asia.

Raimondo was in China recently. There, she said that there was a strong appetite among US businesses to make the relationship between the two countries work. Raimondo said that though some actions of the Chinese government were positive, the on-ground situation needed to match the rhetoric.

"China is making it more difficult," Raimondo told CBS's Face the Nation. "I was very clear with China that we need to - patience is wearing thin among American business. They need and deserve a predictable environment and a level playing field. And hopefully, China will heed that message so we can have a stable growing commercial relationship."

She said that US firms faced new challenges like unexplained large fines, raids on businesses and changes to a counterespionage law.

"I was very clear, direct and firm in all of my conversations with my Chinese counterparts," she told CNN. "I didn't pull any punches. I didn't sugarcoat anything." Raimondo also said that she informed theChinese officials that her email was hacked before her late August trip to China.

"They suggested that they didn't know about it and they suggested that it wasn't intentional," she told CNN. "But I think it was important that I put it on the table and let them know and let them know that it's hard to build trust when you have actions like that."

China is currently witnessing a slowdown that has rattled the global markets. The focus is now firmly on troubled developer Country Garden's spiralling debt crisis.

The crisis is unfolding in a sector that contributes roughly a quarter of the economy.

"I think there's no question that (China's economy) is slowing down. And certainly, they're having real, real significant challenges in the real estate sector," she told Face the Nation.

Raimondo said China's economy did better when it was more transparent and market-oriented.

"As they have closed down and become more arbitrary in the way they administer regulations, the economy is quite challenged," she said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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