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Wendy Wu

Disputes with the Trump administration can be settled amicably and a “trade war would benefit nobody”, Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday.
Despite Trump’s promises to raise duties on Chinese goods, Li said Beijing has a “stable, optimistic outlook” on trade with the United States.
Li took the unusual step of making an impromptu statement to reporters during an appearance with his French counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve.
“Let the figures do the talking,” the premier said, citing American jobs supported by Sino-UStrade.
“We have faith that, with mutual respect and on the model of cooperation through equality, issues of trade friction can be resolved amicably,” Li said.
Commerce minister Gao Hucheng said a trade war would disrupt a “win-win” relationship stretching back to 1784, when a US ship first sailed into China’s waters to carry out exchanges of goods.
Gao’s comments come at a time of increased trade frictions between the world’s two biggest economies. US President Donald Trump has blamed China for maintaining an unfair trade advantage, and during his campaign threatened to levy a 45 per cent tariff on Chinese products.
Will Trump’s hard line on US trade with China mean the end of business as usual?
He has appointed Peter Navarro, a critic of China, as chief trade adviser, and Wilbur Ross, who branded China the “most protectionist” major economy, as commerce secretary. But Trump has yet to follow through on his promise to slap punitive measures targeting China.


“We think a trade war should not be an option [for the two countries],” Gao told a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday. “With rapid growing bilateral economic and trade cooperation, both sides should keep talking to handle confrontation and conflict via dialogues and cooperation.”
But China “won’t hide or shy away from possible problems and conflicts in such massive cooperation in Sino-US trade and economies”, he said.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin highlighted the need for strong but balanced economic ties between the two countries via phone calls with top economic officials in Beijing on Friday.
The risks of a possible trade war between the superpowers cast great concern on the outlook for a bilateral relationship which has already seen rising confrontation in recent years, ranging from trade to South China Sea disputes.
China described the bilateral trade ties as a “ballast stone” and “propeller” for broad Sino-US ties. President Xi Jinping said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January that there would be no winner in a trade war.


But one month after stepping into the Oval Office, Trump and his administration have not rolled out a clear economic package, including economic and trade policies regarding China.
Gao said history showed that Sino-US ties had always moved forward despite “wind or rain”.
“Sino-US trade can be traced back to the 18th century when the [ship] Empress of China arrived in China, trading Chinese tea leaves, chinaware and silk with US ginseng, fur and cotton,” Gao said.
According to a statement on the website of the US consulate in Guangzhou, the ship was the first American to sail from the newly independent United States to China, arriving at Canton, now Guangzhou, in August 1784. The ship returned to New York in May 1785, making about 25 per cent profit on a round-trip voyage of 14 months and 24 days.
How a Trump trade war with China could do the US more harm than good
Gao then skipped ahead about two hundred years. “In 1979 when China and the US established diplomatic relations, the bilateral trade turnover was merely US$ 2.5 billion, but 38 years later, the bilateral trade turnover had grown to US$519.6 billion in 2016.”
Gao said the economies of China and the US were “deeply integrated”, pointing to the number of flights and tourists that travel between the two sides, and the size of investment. US exports to China had created 910,000 American jobs in 2015, he said.
“No matter how America’s China policy changes, Sino-US economic and trade ties will ultimately return to the track of mutual benefits and a win-win basis.”
The minister, however, avoided taking aim at Trump directly.
When asked about Trump’s criticisms against China, Gao said he did not want to “comment too much” on campaign rhetoric. Instead, China was paying attention to the “attitude” of the new administration towards China trade, Gao said.


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US-China relations

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China Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng at a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday. Photo: Handout

FILE PHOTO - Onlookers watch from a harbour wall as the largest container ship in world, CSCL Globe, docks during its maiden voyage, at the port of Felixstowe in south east England, January 7, 2015. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

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The United States posts its largest trade deficit in four years, leaving observers in China with renewed fears of a backlash against the nation

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The US trade deficit with China actually went down last year, although the country’s total deficit increased. Photo:Reuters

China will be the clear winner if Trump declares a trade war

US President-elect Donald Trump has labelled China a currency manipulator and perpetrator of unfair trade practices, and threatened retaliation including steep import tariffs. But if the posturing becomes reality, the heat is likely to be on his own administration instead. Photo: AFP

An employee counts 100 Chinese yuan banknotes at a bank in Hefei, Anhui province, January 21, 2013. Yield-chasing investors, whose hunger for income powered a long rally in Asian junk-rated bonds, are finally feeling the first symptoms of indigestion after a year-long binge. To match Analysis ASIA-MARKETS/CREDIT REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA - Tags: BUSINESS)

Boxes of Mengniu's milk products are seen at a supermarket in Beijing June 19, 2013. China Mengniu Dairy Co Ltd signed a second takeover deal in a month on Tuesday, offering to buy Carlyle-backed Yashili International Holdings Ltd in a deal worth about HK$12.5 billion ($1.6 billion) as part of a plan to expand its milk powder business. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon (CHINA - Tags: BUSINESS FOOD)

(161209) -- NANJING, Dec. 9, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Aerial photo taken on Nov. 29, 2016 shows a view of Lianyungang Port in Lianyungang City, east China's Jiangsu Province. Lianyungang Port, whose construction began in early 1930s, is now one of the important outlets from east China to the Pacific Ocean. Since the China-Kazakhstan logistics terminal was put into operation in Lianyungang on May 19, 2014 and the first freight train departed from Lianyungang to Kazakhstan's Almaty on Feb. 25, 2015, the port has been playing a pivotal role in connecting East Asia with Central Asia and Europe, offering an attractive alternative for the flow of trade between the three regions. (Xinhua/Han Yuqing) (wf)

SCMP

How a Trump trade war with China could do the US more harm than good

An Apple store in Beijing, China. Apple is one of many US firms operating in China that could be harmed by aggressive trade policies imposed by the Trump administration. Photo: Reuters

This picture taken on November 7, 2012 shows a ship berthed ahead of its cargo of containers being unloaded at the port of Qingdao in northeast China's Shandong province. China's export growth accelerated in October, the government said on November 10, adding to evidence the world's second-largest economy is bouncing back as the ruling Communist Party chooses new leaders. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO

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Diplomacy

Amid possible trade war, China reminds Trump of commerce history stretching back to 1784


Donald Trump