China may weaponise service trade to hit back against US tariffs: commentators

That will include expanding the trade dispute to include the services sector, where China runs a substantial deficit with the US, according to Ren Yi, a blogger better known by his online alias Chairman Rabbit, citing unnamed sources with inside knowledge of official discussions in Beijing.

“The trade war has been focused solely on the goods trade, which is unreasonable because, in essence, the US buys our goods and sells us services,” Ren told the Post.

Ren, who has over 1 million followers on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, said in an article on Tuesday that Beijing still has six “remaining big moves” that it can use to counter US trade pressure.

Those measures include placing restrictions on purchases of services from US firms, “substantially” increasing tariffs on US soybeans, banning imports of US poultry and Hollywood films, suspending cooperation on controlling the illegal drug fentanyl, and investigating US companies in China over intellectual property-related issues.

Another political commentator with over 4 million followers on Weibo, known as Niutanqin, posted a list of the same six suggested countermeasures on the same day. The account is run by a senior journalist at Xinhua, the state-run Chinese news agency.

China can target America’s services sector in a variety of ways, such as by restricting US firms from taking part in Chinese government procurement processes or limiting cooperation between Chinese companies and US law firms and consultancies, according to Ren.