By Saleha Mohsin and Ye Xie
US and Chinese economic chiefs sidestepped their differences over North Korea and steel imports ahead of a high-level forum in which the Trump administration is seeking clear commitments from China to open its markets.
“There remains serious imbalances which we must work to rectify,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Tuesday in Washington at an event organized by the US-China Business Council, a nonprofit group representing more than 200 American companies that do business in China. “It is time to rebalance our trade and investment relationship in a more fair, equitable and reciprocal direction.”
Ross spoke at the gathering along with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, a day before the US-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, or CED, in Washington. The forum for economic and trade talks was agreed to in April, when President Donald Trump met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Florida and developed a 100-day action plan. The talks led to China re-opening its markets to US beef and pledging to buy US liquefied natural gas, while allowing greater access to its financial services sector.
The meeting comes amid tensions between the two nations as Trump steps up pressure on China to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program. His administration is also weighing steps to cut steel imports, blaming China’s overcapacity for creating global gluts.
“What matters most with the CED and other forms of dialogues is to get the two sides to sit together and talk, to avoid the mutual abuse triggered by lack of communication,” said He Weiwen, deputy director of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. “The dialogue should cover both the generic rules and the specific deliverables. It should be cooperation-oriented, and to get the things hanging over China-US relations done one by one.”
Mnuchin on Tuesday said the US wants specific deliverables from the CED and that the US will use the discussions to push China on lifting foreign ownership restrictions in its financial services industry and to remove hurdles for information and technology sectors.
“China is in the midst of a change to a more sustainable growth model,” Mnuchin said. “We still have work to do with China to achieve a balanced relationship” based on reciprocity.
The Chinese government has been giving market-oriented policies a larger role in the economy, moving away from a state-led model, with a goal to achieve 6.5 percent average economic growth in the five years through 2020.
“The Chinese economy will continue to grow at medium-high speed and climb higher on the value chain, as China’s traditional industries are transformed and upgraded at a faster pace and emerging industries flourish,” Wang said in a speech at the event.
While Trump built a positive rapport with Xi during the April meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, there are signs of growing friction as the US pushes China to reduce North Korea’s nuclear threat.