BEIJING (Reuters) – China\u2019s commerce ministry said on Thursday trade negotiations with the United States would be impossible as Washington\u2019s attempts at dialogue were not sincere, and vowed to retaliate if U.S. President Donald Trump escalates current tensions.<\/p>\n
China President Xi Jinping on Tuesday vowed to open China\u2019s economy further and lower import duties on goods such as cars, boosting hopes for an easing of tensions between both nations. Trump responded via Twitter he was \u201cthankful\u201d for Xi\u2019s remarks on tariffs and access for U.S. automakers, and said both countries would \u201cmake great progress together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng told reporters during a regular briefing, however, that Xi\u2019s remarks had nothing to do with the trade row and should not be mischaracterized as a concession to Washington.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s two largest economies have threatened each other with tens of billions of dollars\u2019 worth of tariffs in recent weeks, spurring worries of a full-scale trade war that could damage global growth and roil markets.<\/p>\n
Some U.S. officials and analysts have said they believe the dispute could eventually be resolved via dialogue, but Beijing reiterated on Thursday that no formal talks have taken place.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Global Times tabloid wrote in a commentary that Washington could either respond sincerely to China\u2019s determination to conduct interactions showing good will with the U.S. or keep pressuring China with unreasonable demands and escalate trade frictions.<\/p>\n
Washington accuses Chinese firms of stealing the trade secrets of U.S. companies and forcing them into joint ventures to acquire their technology – the crux of Trump\u2019s current tariff threats against China. Beijing denies this charge.<\/p>\n
Trump on Monday criticized China for maintaining 25 percent import tariffs on autos compared to the 2.5 percent duties of the U.S., calling the relationship \u201cstupid trade.\u201d But Gao said WTO rules do not require equal tariffs and demand for such parity is unreasonable.<\/p>\n
He said China would continue to open its markets and implement lower tariffs pledged by Xi as soon as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING (Reuters) – China\u2019s commerce ministry said on Thursday trade negotiations with the United States would be impossible as Washington\u2019s attempts at dialogue were not sincere, and vowed to retaliate if U.S. President Donald Trump escalates current tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1491,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions\/1491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}