China says will not ‘back down’ after spat with US
BEIJING: China has never surrendered to external pressure and it will win any trade war with the US, the nation’s state media stressed in a series of editorials and columns in the hours after the world’s two top economies targeted each other with steep tariffs.
While China’a Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai stressed in comments to reporters in Washington that Beijing’s preference was to resolve the trade dispute through negotiations, Beijing’s official mouthpieces were taking a more belligerent line.
The ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper said Beijing’s quick counter-move had caught the Americans off guard.
“Within 24 hours of the US publishing its list, China drew its sword, and with the same strength and to the same scale, counter-attacked quickly, fiercely and with determination,” the paper said in a commentary on Thursday. “The confidence to know that will win the trade war comes from the scale of [China’s] consumer market,” the paper said, noting that China’s market potential is incomparable to other economies.
Many American consumer product and industrial companies see the Chinese market as a big source for future growth given the continued rise in the number of people joining both the middle class and the wealthier levels of Chinese society.
The US’S proposed list of $50 billion in duties on Chinese goods is aimed at forcing Beijing to address what Washington says is deeply entrenched theft of US intellectual property and forced technology transfer from US companies.
China hit back within hours with its own threatened tariffs on US imports including soybeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals.
The official Xinhua news agency said late on Wednesday that the US tariffs proposal would cost the US “dearly”. “China will not be afraid or back down if a trade war is unavoidable. The country has never surrendered to external pressure, and it will not sur- render this time either,” Xinhua said.
The apparent determination not to retreat is at the polar opposite of comments by White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, who told Fox News on Wednesday: “I believe that the Chinese will back down and will play ball.”
Shortly after Trump’s administration issued its list, China’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization urged all of the trade body’s members to join with China to counter US trade abuses.
“China’s counter tariffs are a spectacular way of standing up to America’s bullying tactics, not only for itself, but for other countries threatened by the United States’ new trade policies,” the nationalist
said in an editorial on Thursday..