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US-China trade war deal: Liu He reassures Beijing’s other partners they will not lose out
- Vice-premier says commitments to Washington on intellectual property rights, technology transfers and market access will apply to all partners
- Liu says Chinese and US economies are strongly interconnected and shoots down talk of decoupling
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China’s other trading partners will not suffer after Beijing pledged to increase purchases from the United States, Vice-Premier Liu He said after signing a phase one trade deal with Washington.
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Speaking after the two sides put the brakes on their 18-month tariff war on Wednesday, Liu said the trade deal could stop China and the US from decoupling, but that Beijing had not compromised its relationships with other trading partners to reach a deal with Washington.
“We stuck to two important conditions during negotiations [with the US]. The first was that it won’t hurt any third party, and the second was that it sticks to the principles of the World Trade Organisation,” he was quoted as saying by Chinese business magazine Caixin.
China’s commitments to the US on intellectual property rights protection, technology transfers and financial markets access would also apply to other trading partners, he said.
While US President Donald Trump hailed the deal as a “momentous step”, China’s other trading partners – concerned Beijing might buy less from them – were looking for signs that they would be sidelined.
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The US-China deal involves a commitment from Beijing to buy, over two years, at least US$200 billion of American goods and services more than it did in 2017.
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