China urges dialogue to tackle trade frictions

File photo of Gao Feng, spokesman with China's Commerce Ministry. [Photo: VCG]

China has again urged the United States to abandon unilateralism and protectionism, and resort to dialogue and consultation to handle trade disagreements.

The remarks were made in the wake of the U.S. decision to lengthen the days for public to comment on its imposed tariffs on Chinese goods from 30 days to 60 days.

Earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum that could impose tariffs on up to 50 billion U.S. dollars of imports from China and restrictions on Chinese investment in the United States.

Gao Feng, spokesman with China's Commerce Ministry, reiterated on Thursday that China is confident it will be able to react against any form of trade or investment protectionist act.

"China will take all the proper measures to defend our own legitimate rights and interests. We do not exclude any option."

China's trade with the US was valued at about 580 billion U.S. dollars and accounted for 14.1 percent of China's total foreign trade.

The country's investment in the US is valued at about 7.8 billion U.S. dollars and accounted for 6.5 percent of its total non-financial outbound investment.

Gao warned against unilateral trade measures, saying it could cause a chain reaction of protectionist policies around the world, ultimately hurting the global economy.

"The actions of the US has set a very bad precedent. It is a blatant violation of WTO (World Trade Organization) rules to impose tariffs on Chinese goods. By doing so, the US has completely put behind the multilateral trade system. It is contemptuous and tramples on multilateral rules. The bad behaviour of the US may also trigger a chain reaction of trade protectionism, and will cast shadows over the global economy which is under recovery."

China has said it was open to negotiating with Washington over the latest trade issue.

Gao said on Thursday that China was open to negotiations, but only if they were "equal", and never under "unilateral threat and intimidation".

"China's door of negotiation and discussion is always open, but I want emphasise that we have principles for the negotiation. First of all, actions of unilateralism and trade protectionism must be abandoned. Secondly, negotiations must be equal. China will never conduct any kind of negotiations under unilateral threats and intimidation. The negotiations also have to be constructive and balanced and both sides must make joint efforts."