Officials of the State Department and the Commerce Department came under rapid criticism from members of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission as well as lawmakers during a hearing over the rising deficit and Beijing's alleged manipulation of its currency value.

Commission member George Becker said the trade deficit in 2004 would hit 161 billion dollars and was expanding at an annual rate of up to 29 percent a year and could "double or triple within three to five years."

"This has reached epidemic proportions. I have never seen this trend go down. What is our strategy, how do you deal with this?" he asked Henry Levine, the deputy assistant secretary of commerce for Asia-Pacific policy, and Shaun Donnelly, a principal deputy assistant secretary of state.

Levine conceded that the United States would not be able to support such deficit growth, saying it was "clearly unsustainable."

But he said a key consolation factor was that the United States was importing fewer goods from other Asian countries which had shifted their production to China due to comparative advantages.

Many of the goods Asia exports to China are also used to make products that are eventually shipped to the United States.

Levine claimed the higher share of US imports from China was partly offset by a declining share of imports from other Asian countries. He did not cite figures.