``Isn't it an obvious self-contradiction that the United States heavily underlines its trade deficit with China, while at the same time it builds obstacles for its companies' exports to China ''? the newspaper quoted Zhou Shijian as saying.

Zhou is vice- president of the Chinese chamber of commerce of metals, minerals and chemicals importers and exporters.

``Large and medium-sized American companies are fully capable of winning over a bigger slice of the emerging China market as long as the Clinton administration withdraws its meddling hand,'' Zhou was quoted as saying.

According to US statistics, China enjoyed a trade surplus of $50 billion with the United States in 1997. China's general administration of customs says the figure is much smaller, putting it at $16.4 billion.

Onthe eve of US president Bill Clinton's June 25-July 3 visit to China, Beijing urged Washington to ease controls on American technology exports.

China also urged the United States to lift trade sanctions imposed in 1989 after the brutal army crackdown on student-led demonstrations for democracy in the Chinese capital.

But no such agreements were reached during Clinton's nine-day visit.

The newspaper said a China-US agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation finalised in March this year would give US firms good business opportunities that would encourage Washington to ease further restrictions on high technology exports.

It also urged Washington to provide greater financial support to US firms wanting to gain a share of the Chinese market.

Last month, US defence experts warned the Senate armed services committee that US export controls on high technology and other dual use equipment needed to be tightened to protect against missile proliferation.

The committee is one of several looking intoallegations that Beijing gained sensitive US missile technology during its launches of US satellites.

The newspaper said China's contracted high technology exports surged 43.5 per cent year-on-year to $2.54 billion in the first half of 1998.

It did not give a figure for actual high technology exports in the period.

The strong growth in contracted high technology exports was supported by exports of several complete plants to South Asia and Europe, and exports of ship-building equipment to the United States and Europe, it said.

To further boost exports amid the Asian financial crisis, Beijing was considering cutting interest rates on export credit and raising export rebate rates for complete plants and high technology products, it said.