U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow called China's currency peg a threat to the global economy and said the benefits of a near-term revaluation outweigh any risks in a newspaper article published on Thursday. "I believe the risks associated with delay far outweigh any concerns with immediate reform," Snow wrote in the Asian Wall Street Journal. "The currency system poses a risk to China's economy, its trading partners and global economic growth." Snow called the yuan's tight 8.28 peg to the dollar "highly distortion" to the global economy. "It is incumbent on China to address concerns before the mounting pressures worldwide to restrict trade harm the openness of the international trading system," he wrote. U.S. officials including Snow have called more loudly for China to soon relax the yuan's peg to the dollar in the past few months as congressional pressure has mounted. A proposed bill in the U.S. Senate would slap tariffs on Chinese goods if Beijing does not soon relax the yuan. Snow will give testimony on the Treasury's recent report on the currency practices of trade partners in the Senate at 1400 GMT. The Treasury stopped short of calling China a currency manipulator in the report. A report in the Financial Times earlier this week said the Treasury had enlisted the help of unofficial envoys, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, to convince China that it should soon act to prevent such protectionist trade measures. Snow said a more flexible yuan would support China's economic stability, allow for better allocation of resources, promote productivity and quell speculative capital inflows. Chinese officials have steadfastly said they will not bow to outside pressure and have no timetable for adjusting the yuan's peg. A senior Chinese trade official, Yu Jianlong, said on Wednesday that "the time has not come for us to appreciate the value of the Chinese currency." Snow said the debate over China's currency peg was clouded by misconceptions. He said the United States was not asking for a free float of the yuan and that it recognized a more flexible yuan alone would not resolve global economic imbalances. Snow also said the United States is doing its part to address global imbalances by "aggressively attacking our fiscal deficit and our long-term unfunded obligations." But he said Japan and Europe must do their part "to achieve higher growth rates."