China talks up defusing of trade row
BEIJING: Chinese state media yesterday praised a significant dialling back of trade tension with the United States, saying China had stood its ground and the two countries had huge potential for cooperation.
A trade war was ‘‘on hold’’ after the world’s largest economies agreed to drop their tariff threats while they worked on a wider trade agreement, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said yesterday.
The previous day, Beijing and Washington said they would keep talking about measures under which China would import more energy and agricultural commodities from the United States to narrow the $US335 billion annual US goods and services trade deficit with China.
The official China Daily cited China’s chief negotiator, Vicepremier Liu He, as saying the talks had been ‘‘positive, pragmatic, constructive and productive’’.
‘‘Despite all the pressure, China didn’t ‘fold’, as US President Donald Trump observed. Instead, it stood firm and continually expressed its willingness to talk,’’ the newspaper said in an editorial.
‘‘That the US finally shared this willingness means the two sides have successfully averted the headon confrontation that at one point seemed inevitable.’’
Earlier this month, the United States demanded that China reduce its trade surplus by $US200 billion. No dollar figure was cited in the countries’ joint statement on Sunday.
But some analysts in Beijing warned trade tension would per sist and China should prepare for more action on trade from the Trump administration.
‘‘We should not be blindly optimistic,’’ Shi Yinhong, an expert on ChinaUS relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said after the agreement was announced.
‘‘Blind optimism [could lead to] China losing at this crossroads.’’
Shi said China could accept a lower trade surplus and reduce its market entry barriers, but would not compromise on its industrial policy.
The People’s Daily said that in the energy and agriculture sectors the two countries had obvious synergies, and the United States had the capacity to satisfy the massive Chinese market.
‘‘The ballast stone of SinoUS ties are an equal and mutually beneficial trade and business relationship. Its essence is winwin cooperation,’’ it said.
However, some people in US business groups who had been pushing for more pressure on China to reform market barriers expressed frustration and disappointment.
James Zimmerman, a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said the administration’s move to walk back its threatened trade actions was premature and a ‘‘lost opportunity’’ for American companies and consumers.
‘‘The Chinese are in a state of quiet glee knowing that Trump’s trade team backed off on sanctions without getting any real and meaningful concessions out of Beijing,’’ he said.