==China Releases White Pape on Trade negotiations
quite the gas-lighting here.
"Trade War Has Not Made America Great Again": China Lashes Out At US Which Is "Solely To Blame"
China's media propaganda campaign against the US in the increasingly dirty trade war between the two superpowers can be roughly divided into five parts. As the Economist's Simon Rabinovitch broke down the various phases, these can be grouped roughly as follows: 1) quiet optimism; 2) reassessment; 3) put the theory to the test; 4) US failure is inevitable.
Today marks the 16th straight day of People's Daily 钟声 (loosely, "Voice of China") commentaries on the trade war. We're into the US-failure-is-inevitable phase, on the heels of the your-China-theory-is-wrong phase. Here's my breakdown of the flow: pic.twitter.com/fg2u8L3egN
— Simon Rabinovitch (@S_Rabinovitch) May 29, 2019
And, as of this weekend, we now appear to be in the "despondent acceptance" phase (unlike the Kubler-Ross model, acceptance precedes anger and nuclear war), because as Xinhua reported overnight, China is now laying the blame squarely on the US for the breakdown of trade talks between the world’s two biggest economies, but hinted at its willingness to resume stalled negotiations with Washington while rejecting any attempt to force concessions from Beijing.
In a white paper on China’s official position on the trade talks released by the State Council Information Office on Sunday, Beijing made it clear the US government "should bear the sole and entire responsibility" for the current stalemate, and hit back at allegations that Beijing had backtracked from its earlier promises.
The trade war has not “made America great again,” the white paper said, but has done serious harm to the U.S. economy by increasing production costs, causing higher prices hikes, damaging growth and people’s livelihoods, as well as creating barriers to U.S. exports to China.
“It is foreseeable that the latest U.S. tariff hikes on China, far from resolving issues, will only make things worse for all sides,” according to the white paper, which also listed details of what it described as U.S. backtracking.
"The Chinese government rejects the idea that threats of a trade war and continuous tariff hikes can ever help resolve trade and economic issues," according to the white paper. "Guided by a spirit of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, the two countries should push forward consultations based on good faith and credibility in a bid to address issues, narrow differences, expand common interests, and jointly safeguard global economic stability and development," it said, according to Bloomberg.
As Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen, who led the working-level team in the negotiations, said China is willing to work with the US to find solutions, but the latter’s strategy of maximum pressure and escalation can’t force concessions from China: "When you give the U.S. an inch, it takes a yard", he said.
Of course, that ignores the fact that it was China that reneged on the terms of the agreement in the first days of May, at least according to Washington.
Meanwhile, the white paper said that Beijing remained “committed to credible consultations based on equality and mutual benefit”, but would “not give ground on matters of principle”.
When asked what the US side needed to do for the negotiations to continue, Wang referred to a preliminary agreement made by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Argentina in December.
Meanwhile, when asked about US firms’ complaints that customs clearance was taking longer since the start of the trade war, he advised companies to contact the relevant authorities. “If certain firms are faced with specific issues, they can talk to local commerce departments,” he said.
On the increasingly touchy matter of exports of rare earth minerals, Wang repeated Beijing’s comments of the past week. “With the world’s richest rare earth resources we are willing to satisfy the normal needs of other countries,” he said.
not for long will you have the largest rare earth availability-kek
The punchline: when addressing the chances of the two sides achieving a breakthrough in their trade negotiations by the time of the G20 summit, Shi said: “The difference is too wide and would be impossible for them to bridge in a month.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-02/trade-war-has-not-made-america-great-again-china-lashes-out-us-which-solely-blame