Diplomat: US accusations baseless

Claims of unfair trade practices made against China are flawed and untenable

The United States' latest accusations against China of unfair trade practices are untenable and flawed, China's Ambassador to the WTO said in a recent response to the charges raised by the US in a paper.

Ambassador Zhang Xiangchen made the comments in response to the paper entitled China's Trade-Disruptive Economic Model presented by US Ambassador Dennis Shea to the last WTO meeting in Geneva before the summer break.

Zhang said the US takes its own views as other countries' positions, and even the multilateral rules.

He said that the US paper "intentionally" omitted some information－for example, the paper partially quoted an expression from an official Chinese document "the government plays its role better" but ignored the following sentence "the market should play a decisive role in allocating resources."

Zhang said such a clarification is critically important, as market force is China's economic and institutional basis upon which the country promotes its relations with WTO members.

The US paper also lacks consistency in the standards used in assessing WTO member's policies, according to Zhang.

Noting that the developed countries are inventors and major users of industrial policies and subsidies, Zhang stressed the paper is "plainly exaggerating" to describe China's industrial policies as rocket engines.

He accused the US of being a major disrupter of world trade order with its tariffs on steel, aluminum and tens of billions of dollars' worth of Chinese goods.

For the past several months, China and the US, the world's two largest economies, have been embroiled in escalating trade tensions. The White House is threatening to impose tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods, and China said it will take countermeasures when necessary.

Admitting there are challenges in China's economy, Zhang said China's reform is entering into the deep-water zone and the country welcomes constructive criticism and suggestions. One of China's future reforms is the shifting of the economic model from huge quantity to high quality, he added.

The Chinese government has reiterated on many occasions its steadfast and long-term commitment to further open up its market, and rolled out road maps for future direction.

"China's opening-up has brought enormous chances for us, and we have seen many changes as the market became more and more open through the years," said Wu Song, vice-president and managing director of Johnson Controls China, a US Fortune 500 company that specializes in smart city solutions, car parts and new energy batteries.

"During the 40 years' progress in opening-up, the Chinese market has become more and more important," he said. "In the first stage, China bought what we sold to the country. In the second stage, we moved our factory. Now we are customizing products for the Chinese market."