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U.S. labor secretary signs agreements in China

By EDWARD LANFRANCO

BEIJING, June 21 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao presided over agreements with Chinese officials Monday to expand cooperation in labor regulations and workplace safety.

Chao is the first U.S. Secretary of Labor to pay an official visit to China in more than 15 years. William E. Brock came here in 1988, when Ronald Reagan was president.

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Some political analysts see Chao's Beijing trip as a move on the part of the Bush administration to diffuse criticism in the November presidential election about manufacturing job flight to developing countries, especially China.

A press release issued by the Department of Labor through the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the agreements represented "the most comprehensive engagement with China on labor issues ever."

Four letters of understanding were reached on Monday, two each with China's Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the country's State Administration of Work Safety, or SAWS.

The Labor Department's assistant secretary for employment standards, Victoria A. Lipnic, signed an arrangement with the MOLSS director general of the Department of International Cooperation, Liu Xiu, expanding cooperation in the field of regulatory environment concerning wages.

China and the United States will work together in wage-and-hour regulation enforcement, public awareness of wage-and-hour laws as well as management and analysis of wage-enforcement data.

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Liu also signed an agreement with Ann L. Combs, assistant secretary of the Employee Benefits Administration, to share government experience in the regulation, administration and oversight of pension programs.

Labor's assistant secretary for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, John L. Henshaw, signed a letter with Lin Yisheng, deputy director of the General Department of Foreign Affairs, at SAWS focusing on workplace safety.

The two agencies will cooperate in the areas of occupational safety and health, hazardous-chemical handling and distribution, workplace accident emergency-response procedures, private insurance programs, plus collection and analysis of occupational safety and health data.

Lin also endorsed an agreement with David D. Lauriski, assistant secretary for mine safety and health in the U.S. Department of Labor, covering accident emergency response, the role of private insurers in promoting mine safety and health as well as collecting and analyzing mine safety and health data.

On Tuesday morning, the Labor Secretary will visit an American auto parts manufacturer with Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans, who is also in Beijing. In the afternoon, she is scheduled to call on a job-skills training center for rural women.

On Wednesday, Chao will attend an American Chamber of Commerce breakfast followed by visits to an orphanage and the Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology on the campus of Beijing's renown Peking University.

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Chao wraps up her four-day stay in Beijing Thursday at a joint press conference with Evans.

Elaine L. Chao is the first American woman of Asian descent appointed to a Cabinet position. She is married to Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

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