China rejects responsibility for U.S. trade deficit
July 31, 2017 Category Foreign trade, Weekly
China cannot be blamed for the United States’ deficit in bilateral trade as complicated U.S. trade structures are the real reason, Chinese officials said. It is important to highlight that in certain sectors like high-tech products, agriculture and services, China is also bearing a heavy deficit in trade with the U.S., they added. Their comments follow recent remarks by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that imports from China have surged by 200%, creating a deficit of USD309 billion in the country’s foreign trade in the past 15 years. Gao Feng, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), said the China-U.S. trade balance has long been a complicated issue and needs to be studied systematically. Many factors led to China’s surplus in trade with the U.S., including differences in economic structures, focus on certain industries with advantages, the international division of labor, the system of trade statistics, and U.S. restrictions on high-tech exports to China, Gao said. “The U.S. side needs to understand that trade in services is also part of the business. For China, the U.S is the biggest source of the service trade deficit and it has been growing fast in recent years,” said Xing Houyuan, Member of the Expert Committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). Bilateral trade in services has tripled to USD110 billion in 2016 from around USD37 billion in 2006, but China’s deficit in this segment continues to widen. Between January and May this year, China’s deficit in bilateral trade in services reached USD23 billion, up 17% year-on-year. “China does not aim for a trade surplus”, Liu Chao, Deputy Director General of Legal Affairs at the CCPIT said, as reported by the China Daily.
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