China hits back at U.S. over steel pipe duties

（Reuters） - U.S. sanctions against imports of seamless steel pipe from China are unacceptable and will hurt bilateral trade relations, the Commerce Ministry said on Wednesday.

Yao Jian, the ministry's spokesman, said anti-dumping and countervailing duties imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department on Monday on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Chinese steel were discriminatory.

The Commerce Department said it was imposing final anti-dumping duties ranging from 48.99 percent to 98.74 percent to offset below-market pricing by Chinese exporters.

It also said it would levy final countervailing duties of 13.66 percent to 53.65 percent to offset Chinese government subsidies.

Speaking at a monthly news conference, Yao said China would soon send a vice-commerce minister to the United States to explore deeper cooperation in areas such as high-technology and energy.

Yao also said it was unreasonable for the United States to level criticism at China's exchange rate policy simply because of its trade surplus.

In contrast to its bilateral surplus with the United States, China ran trade deficits with Japan and Australia, showing that the rate of the yuan was not the root cause of the U.S. imbalance, Yao said.