(Bloomberg) — China enters trade talks said to begin early next month in Beijing having made concerted efforts to end the standoff with the U…
(Bloomberg) — China enters trade talks said to begin early next month in Beijing having made concerted efforts to end the standoff with the U. S., and also unsure it’s done enough.
Since Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump came to a temporary truce almost a month ago, China’s removed a retaliatory duty on U. S. automobiles and is drafting a law to prevent forced technology transfers. It’s also slashed import tariffs on more than 700 products and began buying U. S. crude oil, liquefied natural gas and soybeans again.
Officials have been in constant contact with the U. S. to try to determine what else is needed to move things forward in January, according to people familiar with the talks. It appears to Chinese officials that the U. S. itself isn’t clear on what it wants, said the people, who asked not to be named because the negotiations are private.
China wants the U. S. to remove the punitive tariffs that have been imposed and not add new ones, but suspects the U. S. will ask for more before it agrees to do that, the people said. Officials are working on alternative retaliatory measures in case the talks collapse, they said.
“After the meeting in Argentina, the incentive for China to speed up opening up and reform has increased,” said Lu Xiang, an expert in bilateral ties at the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
