Beijing says claims it is nearing a deal with Washington to resolve the trade war are ‘fake news’

Beijing has called on the US to “completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures” if it wants trade talks, in some of China’s strongest comments yet on the impasse between the world’s two economic superpowers.

“The unilateral tariff measures were initiated by the US,” said He Yadong, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson. “If the US truly wants to solve the problem, it should . . . completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures against China and find a way to resolve differences through equal dialogue.”

Beijing has maintained that the US must make the first move to de-escalate the crisis, which is threatening to spark a hard decoupling between the two countries’ economies.

Chinese analysts argue that the US imposition of high tariffs make it difficult for Beijing to find a way to defuse the crisis.

China’s President Xi Jinping would find it difficult to engage personally with Trump on the trade war unless this was preceded by extensive negotiations to hammer out a deal, they say.

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  • Jorge@lemmygrad.ml
    2·
    6 hours ago

    What about the hypothesis that in reality Trump wants to “decouple” from China to enhance is military capability in a war on China?

    I mean, it is clear to me that the US has little chance to compete on economic/innovation merit, yet it still has a considerable chance militarily… for now. The psychopaths running the US probably know they can only hope to compete via violence, and in a few years even that opportunity will be lost.

    I am afraid of WW3. I really hope the US is so blinded by its own neoliberal koolaid that they continue to bet China is about to collapse, as Gordon Chang has been predicting since 2001.

    • freagle@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      I think there’s ample evidence against that hypothesis. Cost overruns and project cancellations abound in the US MIC. From Minutemen nukes to fighter jets to hypersonic missiles, nothings is really going right. As we saw in West Asia, the USA doesn’t even have enough body armor for its forces, and it certainly can’t care for its casualties. There’s really no way it’s going to win a war that it has to go literally to the other side of the planet to conduct. It will be so heavily dependent on vassals, like The Philippines, Japan, and occupied Korea that every single thing it does will be done in a way that is completely fragile and smothered with paranoia if not constant sabotage.

      As far as I’m concerned, all the military strategists who believe that the window for winning a war against China is closing are only taking into account paper capabilities and not taking into account the USA’s inability to actually produce, maintain, and deliver those capabilities in a sustained conflict. To me, that means the window is likely closed. Then take into account that both China and Russia have been very successful in counter-intelligence and the intelligence fiasco that is Ukraine and I don’t think the US military strategists are even working with an accurate picture of China’s capabilities and capacities. I fully believe the window has closed and it’s just going to take some time for the reality on the ground to reach the strategists.