Trump’s move on trade raises concerns
The country always attaches great importance to intellectual property rights and constantly tries to perfect legislation in the area.
China voiced “grave concern” over US President Donald Trump’s order for a study of whether an investigation into China’s intellectual property policies and practices was warranted.
The executive memorandum Trump signed on Monday instructed US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to explore whether to investigate any of China’s laws, policies, practices or actions that may be unreasonable or discriminatory, or may be harming US intellectual property and innovation technology.
China’s Ministry of Commerce responded on Tuesday that China will take all necessary and appropriate measures to protect its commercial and trade interests if the US government wrongly accuses China over alleged theft of US technology and intellectual property.
The United States should cherish the currently sound Sino-US trade relationship and economic cooperation. Any unilateral acts of trade protectionism (such as the 301 investigation) from the US are doomed to damage the bilateral economic and trade relations and corporate interests from both sides, according to a statement from the ministry.
Section 301 allows the US president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect US industries.
In recent years, China has taken an active stance in opening up to the outside world as well as providing a better environment for foreign investment and business operations in China. China took the initiative to repeatedly revise the Catalogue of Industries for Guiding Foreign Investment, trimming 117 restrictive measures since 2011, the statement said.
The country always attaches great importance to intellectual property rights and constantly tries to perfect legislation in the area and strengthen administrative and judicial protections.
Trump’s move has triggered opposition from the Chinese government and concerns of strained trade relations between the world’s two largest economies.
In Beijing on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that “any
member of the WTO should observe its rules in taking trade measures”, a view shared by the Ministry of Commerce.
Trump’s action came at a sensitive time, coinciding with his tweet last week that if China helps more on restraining the nuclear weapons program from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, he might think differently about trade issues. But a senior White House official indicated that the two issues were not related.
“It is obviously improper to use one issue as a tool to exercise pressure on the other,” Hua said at the daily briefing.
The study Trump requested could take up to a year and a 301 investigation would take additional time, said Henry Levine, a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington and a former US deputy assistant secretary of commerce.
“Therefore, we are very far from any substantive actions that would create serious problems in US-China relations,” he told China Daily.
Some observers interpreted Trump’s order on Monday as a move to show his supporters that he is finally keeping a campaign promise after other failures.