US has ‘knife to China’s neck’

RESUMPTION WILL DEPEND ON WILL OF AMERICA, SAYS CHINESE DIPLOMAT Both sides heap billions of dollars of tariffs on each other’s goods.

Asenior Chinese official says it is difficult to proceed with trade talks with the United States while Washington is putting “a knife to China’s neck”, a day after both sides heaped fresh tariffs on each other’s goods.

When the talks can restart would depend on the “will” of the US, Vice-Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said at a news conference in Beijing yesterday.

US tariffs on $200 billion (about R2.9 trillion) worth of Chinese goods and retaliatory taxes by Beijing on $60 billion worth of US products, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) kicked in on Monday, unnerving global financial markets.

“Now that the United States has adopted such a huge trade restriction measure ... how can the negotiations proceed? It’s not an equal negotiation,” Wang said, stressing the United States has abandoned its mutual understanding with China.

China’s top diplomat also told business people at a meeting in New York that talks could not take place against the backdrop of “threats and pressure”, the foreign ministry said.

Certain forces in the US have been making groundless criticisms against China about trade and security issues, which has poisoned the atmosphere for Sino-US ties and is highly irresponsible, State Councillor Wang Yi was quoted as saying.

“If this continues, it will destroy in an instant the gains of the last four decades of China-US relations,” Wang told members of the US-China Business Council and National Committee on United States-China Relations.

US representatives there included Blackstone Group LP co-founder and chief executive Stephen Schwarzman and Mastercard Inc chief executive Ajay Banga, the National Committee on United States-China Relations