REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Mitt Romney accused China of stealing American inventions and assailed the nation's currency policies Thursday, playing to voters' economic fears amid worries about another recession.
In a speech at Microsoft's headquarters, Romney repeated calls for a new free-trade zone among countries that agree to respect those intellectual property rights and called for broader punishments for China if they don't allow their currency, the yuan, to appreciate in value.
Romney didn't offer any new proposals, instead using the speech to hit China's trade practices. He said China's currency manipulation has cost "millions of jobs" in the U.S.
"I want to make sure that people we trade with follow the rules and if someone consistently cheats, I want to make sure they understand that can't go on," he said.
China's government controls the value of its currency against the dollar, a practice that makes Chinese products cheaper in U.S. markets and U.S. goods more expensive in China. U.S. manufacturers say the currency manipulation hikes the price of American imports by as much as 40 percent.
Romney also harshly criticized China for ignoring U.S. copyright laws, accusing it of counterfeiting American designs, technology and pirating software.
The Chinese are "stealing . . . intellectual property, appropriating it at no cost, duplicating and selling it around the world," he said. "There's also hacking going on, where Chinese companies or even the government itself, perhaps, hacks into computers to steal technology."
Amid stubbornly high unemployment and a persistent economic recession, the GOP presidential candidates have often attacked China as they seek to convince voters they can create jobs and turn the economy around.
China's monetary policy has come under fire in Congress, too. The Senate this week passed a bill to impose higher tariffs on China if they don't allow their currency to gain value more quickly. That bill is unlikely to pass the House, where Republican leaders have opposed it.
But Romney criticized the bill, saying the president already has the power to label China as a currency manipulator. "It's political theater - one more occasion of deceiving the American people into thinking something's being done," Romney said.
Obama hasn't taken a position on the bill.
Democrats say Obama has repeatedly pressured China to stop manipulating its currency.
"A year ago, Romney hit Obama in the book for being too tough on China. Now Mitt's a trade warrior? Should he have called his book No Shame!" top Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
Romney rival Jon Huntsman, a former ambassador to China, has also criticized Romney's trade proposals. "I don't subscribe to the Don Trump school or the Mitt Romney school of international trade. I don't want to find ourselves in a trade war," Huntsman said during Tuesday's debate in New Hampshire.
Romney said if elected president he would immediately label China as a currency manipulator. He also wants American trade authorities to consider China's currency policies as a subsidy on Chinese goods, which would allow the U.S. to put a countervailing subsidy on Chinese imports.
Romney said he didn't want a trade war, "but we also don't want a trade surrender, which is what we're enduring," Romney said Thursday.
As part of his Thursday trip, Romney also held a fundraiser at a downtown Seattle hotel - and was confronted by demonstrators from the Occupy Seattle protest. "Romney is the 1 percent," one of the signs read. The occupy protests, which started in New York with Occupy Wall Street, don't have a single concrete goal, but their unofficial slogan is, "We are the 99 percent." It's a reference to the increasing percentage of wealth that's held by the country's richest 1 percent.
Before his trade speech, Romney met privately with Microsoft executives, including CEO Steve Ballmer.
Romney also on Thursday announced that Carlos Gutierrez, who served as commerce secretary under President George W. Bush, will become his top adviser on trade.