China should ‘try to win over other countries with favourable policies’ amid trade war with US
- Economist at forum in northeast China says Beijing shouldn’t let dispute with Washington ‘disrupt our progress’
- China could also reduce dependence on US dollar, boost use of yuan in commodities and improve free flow of currency, ex-policy bank official says
Beijing should make efforts to win over other countries amid its protracted dispute with Washington, including by offering favourable trade policies, according to Chinese economists and former officials.
Speaking at a forum in Yichun, Heilongjiang province on Saturday, Huang Yiping, an economics professor at Peking University, said Beijing should not allow US President Donald Trump’s trade war to “disrupt our progress”.
“The experience gained from the last few decades tells us that China rose because of its reform and opening up,” said Huang, who is also a former adviser to the monetary policy committee of China’s central bank.
“If China is finding the United States hard to deal with, it could consider implementing opening-up policies that are exclusively for countries other than the US,” he said, without elaborating.
His remarks were echoed by Chen Yuan, former chairman of the China Development Bank, the country’s biggest policy lender, who was also speaking at the event organised by the China Finance 40 Forum think tank.
“We must occupy the moral high ground through various measures and gain international support when dealing with the issue of currency,” said Chen, a son of Chen Yun, one of the ruling Communist Party’s most influential leaders in the 1980s and ’90s.