US, China hold ministerial talks to defuse trade tensions

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Politics & Economic
International
Jan 31, 2019
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WASHINGTON (Kyodo) -- Senior officials from the United States and China started a two-day meeting in the U.S. capital Wednesday in an effort to resolve the tariff war between the two countries, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

    The ministerial talks came as U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports on March 2, a move that would further affect the world economy, unless the two sides strike a deal to address what Washington perceives as Beijing's "unfair" trade practices.

    U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer represents the United States in the talks, while the Chinese delegation is led by Vice Premier Liu He.

    Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is also attending the talks, criticized China's trade practices and economic policy, saying that while Beijing has free access to the U.S. market, Washington has "limited" access to the Chinese market.

    "The critical issue that we've talked about is market access, making sure there aren't forced joint ventures, not forced transfer of technology and that we have a mechanism that when we reach an agreement that we can monitor this agreement and that they'll live up to it," Mnuchin told Fox Business on Tuesday.

    "And that's how I expect we'll make significant progress this week on those issues," he said.

    Calling for fair and reciprocal trade, the Trump administration has pushed Beijing to address alleged intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer, subsidies to state-owned enterprises, and nontariff barriers to American products.

    In the talks, the two sides are discussing "China's pledge to purchase a substantial amount of goods and services from the United States" as a way of reducing the U.S. trade deficit with the world's second-largest economy, according to the White House.

    Speaking to U.S. business news network CNBC last week, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross pressed China to buy more American soybeans and liquefied natural gas.

    Ross also demanded that China advance "structural reforms that we really think are needed in the Chinese economy" because just buying more American products is not enough to address the bilateral trade imbalances in a sustainable way.

    In a Dec. 1 summit in Buenos Aires, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that the two countries would refrain from imposing further tariffs on each other's imports for 90 days while trying to complete trade talks.

    Source : https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190131/p2g/00m/0bu/005000c

    Source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190131/p2g/00m/0bu/005000c