A 100 yuan banknote (R) is placed next to a $100 banknote in this picture illustration taken in Beijing November 7, 2010. 
 
 BEIJING (Reuters) - China warned the United States that it would damage relations, and American jobs, if it forces Beijing to let its currency rise under a law to be voted on in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. 
 
 Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai on Monday underlined Beijing's opposition to the bill, saying it could trigger a trade war and hold back global economic recovery. He said that relations could also be hurt by U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. 
 
 "(The currency bill) in no way represents the reality of the economic and trade relationship between China and the United States, and it might have an adverse impact on the development of the relations between the two countries," he said. 
 
 "Should the proposed legislation become law, the only result would be a trade war between China and the U.S. and that would be a lose-lose situation for both sides," said Cui, who currently heads the China delegation for G20 negotiations. 
 
 China's central bank, and commerce and foreign ministries last week jointly warned that enactment of the proposed currency law could lead to a trade war between the world's two top economies. 
 
 "If this type of situation occurs, of course it would be detrimental to the development of economic and trade relations between China and the U.S. and detrimental to U.S. economic and job growth," Cui said. "At the same time, it would hinder global economic recovery." 
 
 The White House has voiced concerns that the legislation, which calls for tariffs on imports from countries with deliberately undervalued currencies, could violate international trade rules. 
 
 Many economists say China holds down the value of its yuan to give its exporters an edge in global markets. 
 
 Beijing says it is committed to gradual reform of the yuan, which has risen 30 percent against the dollar since 2005. 
 
 U.S. supporters of the bill say the Senate is almost certain to approve it. But the bill faces stronger opposition in the House where it may never face a vote. 
 
 PERSISTENT IRRITANT 
 
 Cui also reiterated China's stance that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan seriously undermine the nation's core interests and would harm ties between Washington and Beijing, weeks after the United States said it would sell $5.85 billion in military hardware to the island China calls a breakaway province. 
 
 The sales to Taiwan have been a persistent irritant in Sino-U.S. ties, adding to economic strains between Washington and Beijing. 
 
 "These arms sales are not consistent with the trend and requirement of peaceful relations currently prevailing across the Taiwan Strait," Cui said. "From a long term perspective, I also don't think it serves the United States' own interests." 
 
 The Obama administration said last week that it is weighing fresh arms sales to Taiwan as part of a sweeping effort to deter any Chinese attack on the island. 
 
 Such supplies would be on top of plans sent to Congress on September 21 to sell new hardware and defense services, including upgrades for Taiwan's 145 F-16 A/B fighter aircraft, bought in 1992. 
 
 Cui said China welcomed a positive and constructive U.S. military presence in the Pacific, but added that "some outside powers" had inflamed tensions in the disputed South China Sea. He did not specify which countries he was referring to. 
 
 "I think some people are stirring up the issue. That is to say, some people don't want to see stability in the region or the development of relations between China and relevant countries," Cui said. 
 
 China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan have conflicting claims of sovereignty over parts of the potentially oil-and gas-rich body of water crossed by key shipping lanes and dotted with uninhabitable small islands, rocks and reefs. 
 
 China's growing military might at sea is triggering regional jitters that have fed into long-standing territorial disputes, but Beijing insists it is merely holding to its centuries-old sovereignty over the waters. 
 
 (Reporting by Michael Martina, Writing by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Ken Wills and Jonathan Thatcher) ||||| Three of the four top U.S. congressional leaders plan to skip a state dinner tonight with Chinese President Hu Jintao, highlighting tension between Congress and the world’s second-largest economic power when President Barack Obama is trying to strengthen ties. 
 
 House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are taking a pass on the black-tie event at the White House. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, a critic of China’s human-rights policy, plans to go to the state dinner, the first for a Chinese leader in more than 13 years. 
 
 All three no-shows, through their aides, cited scheduling conflicts. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, and Reid, a Nevada Democrat who has called the Chinese president “a dictator,” are to meet Hu at the Capitol tomorrow. 
 
 “I look forward to the meeting,” Boehner told reporters today. 
 
 If Hu or Obama had concerns about the leaders’ decisions to stay away, neither would say. At a news conference, Hu deferred a question on the matter to Obama, saying the president was “in a better position to answer.” Obama never did. 
 
 Lawmakers in both political parties have been making hostile statements and proposing tough economic measures against China, including legislation to let the U.S. government impose duties on the nation for undervaluing its currency. 
 
 Scoring With Voters 
 
 Political messages critical of China scored high with voters during last year’s congressional campaign, said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who researched the issue while advising candidates. 
 
 “There’s no question that the American public looks at China as very much a serious competitor -- it’s not quite an enemy, but it’s a competitor -- and Americans are very wary of China these days,” he said. 
 
 Mellman, who has advised Reid, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and numerous House members, said virtually every candidate he worked with last year touched on the issue in some way. 
 
 Hu’s visit is focused on economic ties between the two countries, including more than $400 billion in annual trade, as well as differences over human rights, China’s enforcement of intellectual-property rights and what U.S. officials say is the artificially low value of the yuan. 
 
 Higher Import Duties 
 
 Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a letter this week that they will try to revive House-passed legislation to let U.S. businesses seek higher duties on some Chinese imports to offset any advantage from an undervalued currency. The bill died in the Senate last year. 
 
 At the same time, lawmakers preparing to receive Hu at the Capitol tomorrow are making it clear that the Chinese president is no friend. 
 
 “He is a dictator,” Reid told a Las Vegas television station yesterday. “He can do a lot of things through the form of government they have. Maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘dictator,’ but they have a different type of government than we have, and that is an understatement.” 
 
 Republicans and Democrats hammered at China during a briefing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee today. 
 
 Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, a longtime critic of China’s human-rights record, called Hu an “oppressor” and a “murderer,” questioning why Obama was giving a respectful welcome to “a monstrous regime.” 
 
 ‘World Domination’ 
 
 Democratic Representative Albio Sires of New Jersey said China was seeking “world domination.” New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith suggested that Hu should be brought before an international criminal tribunal instead of feted at the White House. 
 
 The remarks were in contrast to the scene today at the executive mansion, where Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcomed Hu with an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn. 
 
 Obama said the U.S. and China “have an enormous stake in each other’s success.” Hu said, “Our cooperation as partners should be based on mutual respect.” 
 
 Lawmakers’ slights of Hu may add to distrust between the two nations, said Dan Mahaffee, an expert on China at the Washington-based Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. 
 
 “It sends an unfortunate message that at a time of competition between the two countries, that American politicians are busy looking inward,” Mahaffee said, adding that lawmakers are playing to public fears. 
 
 Pew Survey 
 
 A January survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 53 percent of Americans said it was important for the U.S. to get tougher with China on trade and economic issues. One in five, or 20 percent, said China posed the greatest threat to the U.S. of any country, up from 11 percent in November 2009. 
 
 “Local pressure at the district translates up,” Mahaffee said. 
 
 Dozens of congressional candidates aired television advertisements last year seizing on the theme. In one, Reid called his Tea Party-supported Republican opponent Sharron Angle “a foreign worker’s best friend,” and said she backed tax breaks for “outsourcing to China and India.” 
 
 Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California made similar charges against her Republican rival, former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina, saying she shipped jobs “to Shanghai instead of San Jose.” 
 
 Chinese Wind Turbines 
 
 Republicans hit on the theme too. In a spot set to Chinese- sounding music, candidate Spike Maynard slammed Democratic Representative Nick Rahall of West Virginia for backing Obama’s economic-stimulus law, saying it helped fund projects powered by Chinese-made wind turbines. 
 
 “Only a politician who’s been in Washington 34 years would vote to help foreign companies create Chinese jobs making windmills,” said the advertisement, which featured pictures of Mao Zedong, the communist revolutionary who ruled the People’s Republic of China from its founding in 1949 to his death in 1976. 
 
 Reid and Boxer won re-election; Maynard lost. 
 
 The potency of China as a campaign theme was clear, said Clayton Dube, who leads the University of Southern California’s U.S.-China Institute in Los Angeles. 
 
 “Part of it is a genuine worry that the United States is being victimized by an all-powerful Chinese government,” Dube said. “The notion that things are not fair is a very powerful one. It resonates with Americans all the time, particularly in hard times.” 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: Julie Hirschfeld Davis in Washington at jdavis159@bloomberg.net; Lisa Lerer in Washington at llerer@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
– A senior Chinese official warned today that the US is in for a “trade war” if it enacts a Senate bill that would punish China for artificially keeping its currency low. The bill “in no way represents the reality of the economic and trade relationship between China and the US,” a Chinese foreign minister tells Reuters. “The only result would be a trade war … that would be a lose-lose situation for both sides." The bill, which seems all but certain to pass the Senate, would place a tariff on imports from countries that purposely hold down their currency—something China has long been accused of doing to give its manufacturers a competitive edge overseas. But the White House says the bill may violate international trade rules, and John Boehner called it “dangerous,” even as pressure mounts for him to bring it to the floor, the Hill reports.