Trade tension is quietly building between China and the United States, with threats of anti-dumping duties on Chinese textiles becoming more frequent in the run-up to the December 31 scrapping of quotas on textiles.

US Customs charges that China has illegally declared 1,000 containers in the past two years, containing 50 million items, as originating from a dozen other countries. The agency has listed the goods as part of China's quota for this year.

Trade law firm Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg warns: "Perhaps the most likely possibility is the imposition of countervailing duties against textile and apparel shipments."

The firm said that the National Council of Textile Organisations will try to prevent Chinese-made textiles from flooding the US from 2009.

"The domestic textile industry, the Bush administration and Congress are all taking steps that could increase costs and tighten enforcement," it said.

Another challenge could come from Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the US to impose product-specific safeguards against China for up to five more years.

"Although the Bush administration has denied relief in the handful of Section 421 cases filed to date, the next president, who will take office in six months, may take a different approach. There are also several legislative proposals pending that would limit the president's authority to reject Section 421 remedies," said the law firm.

To reinforce the anti-Chinese sentiment, the textile organisations group is thought to be whipping up support among domestic producers and friendly countries to complain to the World Trade Organisation about Chinese subsidies, although this is likely to prove extremely difficult following the animosity generated by the failure of the Doha Round.

There is also animosity in the US itself. The US Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel said the Customs actions were "politically motivated".

"This is politics. With the quotas set to end in less than six months, Customs and Border Protection has to justify the resources it has dedicated to rummaging through foreign factories and then detaining and seizing apparel shipments since 2006," said Laura Jones, executive director of the importers association. "We certainly don't condone any illegal activity, but the real answer is to finally end the quota system, not justify the wasted government resources spent checking whether factories keep massive quantities of perfect paper records."

She said the total value of the reclassified goods was US$80 million, compared with total US clothing imports of $145 billion in the past two years, of which 30 percent was accounted for by China.