China will not buckle to US demands in any trade negotiations, the state-run China Daily said in an editorial yesterday, after Chinese officials welcomed an invitation from Washington for a new round of talks.
China and the US are set to return to the table with the threat of new US tariffs looming after US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin extended the invitation to counterparts in Beijing.
The China Daily said that while China was “serious” about resolving the standoff through talks, it would not be rolled over, despite concerns over a slowing economy and a falling stock market at home.
“The [US President Donald] Trump administration should not be mistaken that China will surrender to the US demands. It has enough fuel to drive its economy even if a trade war is prolonged,” the newspaper said.
If the US imposed new levies on Chinese imports then Beijing “will not hesitate to take countermeasures against US tariffs to safeguard China’s interests,” it added.
Trump said on Twitter on Thursday that the US holds the upper hand in talks.
“We are under no pressure to make a deal with China, they are under pressure to make a deal with us,” Trump wrote. “Our markets are surging, theirs are collapsing.”
The US administration is readying a final list of US$200 billion of Chinese imports on which it plans to levy tariffs of between 10 and 25 percent in the coming days, which would ramp up the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) on Thursday told reporters that Beijing welcomed the invitation and the two nations were discussing the details.
A meeting among Cabinet-level officials could ease market worries over the escalating tariff war that threatens to engulf all trade between the world’s two largest economies, and raise costs for companies and consumers.
However, the last round of talks, between mid-level US and Chinese officials last month, failed to reach any agreement.
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