Trade talks seen key to sustaining China-US economic stability

The ongoing trade talks between China and the United States in France carry great importance for the world's two largest economies to sustain the hard-won stability achieved over the past year, analysts have said.

To this end, analysts said that both Beijing and Washington need to act in good faith and meet each halfway to seek more common ground rather than creating new obstacles, which serves the interests of both countries and facilitates world economy.

Vice-Premier He Lifeng is leading the Chinese delegation in discussions with his US counterparts on "economic and trade issues of mutual concern" from Saturday to Tuesday.

The talks represent the sixth round of bilateral economic and trade consultations following five previous rounds conducted between May and October that helped pull the relationship back from the brink of escalating trade conflict.

The previous trade talks have reached considerable consensus, but some of these understandings have not yet been transformed into formal outcomes, a situation that requires joint efforts to address, said Zhou Mi, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Zhou also noted that the current talks might also focus on how to properly handle US unilateral measures and consolidate mutual trust.

For its part, the Trump administration has sought to maintain leverage through alternative mechanisms after the US Supreme Court last month invalidated its broad presidential tariff authorities. Just days before the France talks convened, Washington launched Section 301 probes into various trading partners, including China.

The new round of trade talks will help "set the tone for the future direction of US trade policy" after the Supreme Court decision, said Cassey Lee, senior fellow and coordinator of the Regional Economic Studies Programme at ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February showed that roughly 90 percent of the economic burden from the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration last year was shouldered by US consumers and businesses as opposed to foreign exporters.

He Weiwen, a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, said that "the common interests between China and the US are immense — far exceeding the tariff game". Both nations have much to gain from collaboration in frontier technologies such as open-source artificial intelligence, robotics, green transition, and biomedicine, he added.

Earlier this month, China approved the outline of its next five-year plan, vowing continued openness to global businesses, including those from the US, seeking to participate in the country's development.

China has a stable and predictable environment for business investment and cooperation but it requires genuine commitment from the US to ensure this can be extended into their shared areas of cooperation in manufacturing, technology industries and services, said Daryl Guppy, an international financial technical analysis expert and a former national board member at the Australia China Business Council.

At a news conference on March 8, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said "Neither side can remodel the other, but we can choose how we want to engage, that is, to commit to a spirit of mutual respect, to hold the bottom line of peaceful coexistence, and to strive for the prospect of win-win cooperation."

Calling 2026 a "big year" for China-US relations, Wang also made it clear that "the agenda of high-level exchanges is already on the table".

"What the two sides need to do now is to make thorough preparations accordingly, create a suitable environment, manage the risks that do exist, and remove unnecessary disruptions," Wang said.

"China is always committed and open. It is critical that the US work in the same direction."

Yang Han in Hong Kong and Xin Xin in Sydney contributed to the story.