US Needs Immediate Action to Bring China Relations Back to the Track of Sound Development

By Wang Yi

Oct 30, 2022 11:45 PM

China US File Photo:CFP

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Friday that the Biden administration “is waiting to see how leadership changes in China will affect the economic relationship between the countries, and will continue to defend American interests.” “I think it’s really ‘wait and see’ and ‘to be determined,’ Tai said in an interview with Bloomberg. 

Be it before or after the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China's foreign policy has always maintained its continuity and stability, and its purpose of promoting common development has not changed. A wait-and-see stance is totally unnecessary and unreasonable if US politicians try to artificially create uncertainty and play up the tensions of “US-China confrontation.”

While the global economy, still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and rampant inflation, is facing an increasingly gloomy and uncertain outlook, the week-long 20th CPC National Congress offers a great sense of certainty for China's social and economic development. China’s development and opening up won’t stagnate, but will continue to advance.

It should be pointed out that China's economy will maintain sustained and stable growth. The US should not misjudge China's economic situation and make wrong policies in its cooperation with China. The strong resilience and solid fundamentals of China’s economy has not changed. China will continue to deepen reform, expand opening-up, and improve its domestic market environment, which will bring more opportunities for foreign companies, including American companies.

While saying it will take a wait-and-see approach, the US is actually pushing an economic decoupling, which is fully responsible for the current bilateral economic and trade tensions. The US side should stop the decoupling approach as soon as possible and promote the bilateral economic relationship back on the right track.

The Biden administration has clearly continued the Trump administration’s tough stance on China, trying to shift the US economic problems by blaming China. However, the US decoupling policy violated economic laws, seriously hurt interests of US businesses, and aroused strong dissatisfaction among them.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China in May released the 2022 American Business in China White Paper, stating that the chamber remains opposed to any effort at outright decoupling of the US-China relationship. The costs of decoupling from losing trade and foreign investment benefits for both countries would be significant and are unlikely to generate clear winners.

As a global manufacturing hub, China has a significant status in global industrial and supply chains. China’s economic progress and upgrading will not be affected by the US’ geopolitical gambits that are designed to contain China and exclude China from supply chains. China is also the largest and fastest-growing market, an important destination of US exporting products and services. The Chinese market has strong research and development systems and is a key revenue source of many US companies.

The China-US trade and economic relationship is currently at a low point. What is needed is not to wait and see, but to take concrete actions. The recovery of China-US trade and economics to the right track will benefit the US economy. It is hoped that the US side will heed calls from the rational and pragmatic voices emanating from US companies and push China-US relations back to the right track of healthy and stable development.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. [email protected]