THE United States withdrew threatened sanctions against China yesterday after winning commitments from Beijing to stamp out copyright piracy, averting billions of dollars in tit for tat sanctions.
"The US side will cancel trade sanctions against China as a result of the talks," Chinese state television said in a special report after four days of intensive negotiations - that brought the two countries to the brink of a bruising trade war.
"China will also call off counter retaliations against the United States," Mr Shi Guangsheng, vice minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, said.
"The importance of this agreement is that it puts in place a system to monitor piracy, enforce the law and verify results ... on the basis of ensuring counterfeit producers are identified and put out of business," a US official said.
A major breakthrough was China's offer to close more pirate plants along with details of its decision this year to deploy police instead of administrators - to tackle the copyright thieves who churn out millions of fake discs each year, said a US industry source.
The agreement averted 100 per cent tariffs to be imposed by Washington on $2 billion (£1.27 billion) worth of Chinese textiles and electronics. China had vowed to retaliate with similar punitive sanctions.
US officials have said they want to see a dozen pirate plants closed, full police enforcement of laws to halt copyright theft and better border controls to prevent exports of pirated goods.
The US also wanted China's markets opened to more legitimate products.
