China does not want a trade war, State Councillor Wang Yi said on Monday, at a joint press briefing with visiting UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. According to the Chinese official, China and the US should resolve trade frictions via the World Trade Organization framework.
According to Wang, the root cause of the current trade imbalances between China and the US lies with the latter, which has reaped large profits from China.
The world’s biggest economies are locked in a prolonged trade fight started by the Trump administration. At the time, the US administration said that China’s high tech industries have stolen intellectual property from US firms and demanded Beijing move to buy more US products to cut the USD 350 billion trade surplus.
China seemed to be in a position to avert a full-scale trade war in May, when China agreed to buy more US agriculture and energy products. However, the deal collapsed and the two sides imposed tariffs on their respective goods.
Since then, Washington has announced plans to set tariffs on an additional USD 450 billion worth of Chinese goods. No formal negotiations have taken place yet.
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