China's Ministry of Commerce has published a report on economic and trade relations with the United States. It provides an overview of economic and trade engagement, and outlines China's stance on certain issues.
The report reviews the historical background and nature of economic and trade ties between the world's two largest economies. It also provides suggestions on ways to promote bilateral economic engagement. The report says that the nature of China-U.S. economic and trade relations is mutually beneficial and that the foundation of deepening engagement is economic globalization. It also says that the legal foundation for such engagement comes from World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and multilateral and bilateral agreements.
Beijing was keen to emphasize the importance of cooperation between the two countries.
"Economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S. is the natural complement of both countries' strengths, international division of industries, and allocation of resources. Both countries benefit from cooperation in a balanced manner," Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Sun Jiwen said.
According to the report, China and the U.S. are the two largest economies in the world, accounting for 40 percent of the global economy, a quarter of the goods exports, and 30 percent of the world's foreign direct investment outflows and inflows. Beijing said that healthy economic and trade relations between China and the U.S. not only benefit their own markets, but also have an impact on global investment and trade.
The report also shows that trade volume between China and the U.S. exceeded 500 billion U.S. dollars last year, more than 200 times the figure from 1979 when diplomatic relations were established. However, trade frictions do exist, with the U.S. lodging around about 260 trade remedy investigations against China between 1980 and 2016.
The report systematically lists major concerns from both sides. For example, China wants the U.S. to fulfill its obligations under Article 15 of the Protocol on China's Accession to the WTO, and stop using the price of alternative state systems to calculate dumping margins of exports from China in anti-dumping investigations.
The U.S. has also raised concerns about its trade deficit with China and the RMB exchange rate.
Despite these differences, Beijing has given positive signals about the future, with Sun saying that China would like to continue strengthening cooperation with the U.S., and realize a healthy and sustainable development of economic and trade relations between the two countries, and benefit the two peoples.
