Beijing must win the hearts of US businesspeople amid trade war, China policy adviser says

‘Trump would love to see [China] make trouble for US firms,’ economist Fan Gang, an ex-member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee, said at Tsinghua University

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Fan Gang wants Beijing to focus on further opening up China’s markets instead of devising ways to hit back at the US. ‘In the long run, it’s good for China,’ he said. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 1:00am, 18 Oct 2018Updated: 1:52pm, 18 Oct 2018

Beijing must not launch retaliatory attacks against American firms or US business operations in China, despite US President Donald Trump’s threat to slap further punitive tariffs on Chinese goods and restrict Chinese investment in the US, a Chinese economist and government adviser has warned.

“Trump would love to see [China] make trouble for US firms,” Fan Gang, a former member of the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China, said in a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Wednesday.

“The business community is now the only voice [in the US] that may speak for China,” Fan said. “If we target them, then we may really lose the trade war.”

Fan, a leader in an economists club founded by Vice-Premier Liu He, said that rather than focus on punitive responses to the Trump administration’s trade action, “we should further open up our market and create a fair business environment. In the long run, it’s good for China.”

A Shanghai-based ship unloads containers at the Port of Long Beach in Los Angeles County. Photo: AFP

Known as a liberal economist, Fan’s tone was soft in comparison with the trade war rhetoric that has come out of China’s official media since Trump began imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese goods six months ago.