The trade relationship based on mutual benefit between China and the United States is not likely to be shaken, as the two sides are able to solve trade frictions through dialogue and negotiations, said China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Thursday, in response to the arrival of new US leadership that advocates a trade war with China.
As areas of cooperation between China and the US continue to expand, the two sides have been closely bonded by converging interests, said MOC spokesperson Sun Jiwen, according to People’s Daily.
Since the first modern Sino-US trade agreement was officially signed in 1979, bilateral trade volume has increased by 211 times to more than US$519.6 billion in 2016, the MOC statistics show. Two-way investment has also shot up to US$170 billion by the end of last year.
A report released by the US-China Business Council, cited by People’s Daily, show that in 2015 alone bilateral trade and investment between the two sides created around 2.6 million jobs in the US and contributed US$216 billion to the US economy.
With the continued growth in Chinese consumers’ purchasing power, service and goods exports from the US to China are expected to reach US$369 billion by 2026 and US$520 billion by 2050, the reports says.
Meanwhile, Chinese product exports have lowered US prices by between 1 and 1.5 percent, the report shows. Bilateral trade is expected to save the average household in the US at least US$850 in annual expenditure, it says.
During his presidential campaign, US President Donald Trump blamed China for stealing jobs from the US and repeatedly threatened to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese products.
But that is not likely to happen given the US President’s limited power in imposing tariffs and the severe economic recession and unemployment likely to be caused by a trade war, said Xiao Lian, a researcher with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to China Securities Journal.
Although chances for a full-range trade war are small, the newspaper quoted independent think tank Pangoal’s senior researcher Zhang Ming as saying, it’s still very likely that the US will launch trade attacks in industries where conflict of interests is particularly fierce.
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