China’s premier aims to ease trade tensions
DALIAN, China — A top Chinese leader made an unusually public effort Tuesday to ease trade tensions somewhat with the United States, woo foreign investors and reassure his own country’s citizens that their economy remained on track.
In meetings during the World Economic Forum in the Chinese port city of Dalian, Premier Li Keqiang, China’s No. 2 official, promised to cut tariffs, loosen limits on foreign investment, protect intellectual property and allow foreign companies to apply for China’s generous subsidies for research and development. He made many of those comments in a rare Q&A session with executives from Japan, the United States and other countries.
He also said China would allow foreign financial services companies into its market a year earlier than previously promised, and it would rewrite many rules on foreign investment.
“We will move up the lifting of foreign capital limits in securities, futures and life insurance, from 2021 to 2020,” Li said in a morning speech, prompting a burst of applause from a crowd that appeared to include many bankers and others in finance. “This shows China’s commitment to opening up.”
Many of Li’s comments lacked details, and they recalled similarly vague promises made by Chinese officials in the past. Still, the timing suggested a willingness to appear conciliatory at a fraught time.
The Trump administration has imposed 25 percent tariffs on nearly half of China’s exports to the United States, prompting a few companies to move operations elsewhere to supply the American market and causing many more companies to consider doing so. President Donald Trump has urged companies to shift operations from China to the United States or elsewhere.
Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed at a meeting Saturday during the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, that they would restart trade talks.
Over the weekend, China also slightly trimmed some of its many long-standing restrictions on foreign investment in specific industries.
U.S. negotiators are likely to see these commitments as symbolic gestures rather than major shifts. The Trump administration has been less preoccupied with helping companies invest in China and more worried about increasing exports of American goods to the country.