China says ready to defend its interests in US trade spat
BEIJING, March 24 (Reuters) - The United States has flouted trade rules with an inquiry into intellectual property and China will defend its interests, Vice Premier Liu He told US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a telephone call on Saturday, Chinese state media reported.
The call between Mnuchin and Liu, a confidante of President Xi Jinping, was the highest-level contact between the two governments since US President Donald Trump announced plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods on Thursday.
The escalating tension sent shivers through financial markets as investors foresaw dire consequences for the global economy if trade barriers start going up. Several US chief executives attending a high-profile forum in Beijing, including BlackRock Inc's Larry Fink and Apple Inc's Tim Cook, urged restraint amid the intensifying trade spat.
In his call with Mnuchin, Liu, a Harvard-trained economist, said China still hoped both sides would remain “rational” and jointly work together to keep trade relations stable, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
US officials say an eightmonth probe under the 1974 US Trade Act has found that China engages in unfair trade practices by forcing American investors to turn over key technologies to Chinese firms.
However, Liu said the investigation report “violates international trade rules and is beneficial to neither Chinese interests, US interests nor global interests”, Xinhua cited him as saying.
In a statement on its website, the office of the US Trade Representat ive Robert Lighthizer said the USTR had filed a request - at the direction of Trump - for consultations with China at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to address “discriminatory technology licensing agreements”.
“China has already prepared, and has the strength, to defend its national interests,” Liu said, adding that China hopes both sides can work hard to protect generally stable Sino-US trade and business relations. Both sides agreed to continue to communicate on the matter, Xinhua added, without providing further details.
China on Friday declared plans to levy additional duties on up to $ 3 billion of US imports, including fruit and wine, in response to US import tariffs on steel and aluminium, imposed after a separate US probe.
China's state- run Global Times said Beijing was only just beginning to look at means to retaliate. “We believe it is only part of China's countermeasures, and soybeans and other US farm products will be targeted,” the widely-read tabloid said.