Coronavirus: US-China blame game prompts Beijing hawks to ramp up criticism of phase one trade deal

Ahead of China’s crucial ‘two sessions’ policy meetings next week, criticism of the US-China trade deal has grown from state-backed news and social media outlets

Analysts suggest Beijing is still committed to phase one, but the gloves are off with regard to how the deal and the US handling of it is discussed in official organs

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Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He and US President Donald Trump signed the phase one trade deal in January. Photo: Reuters

Published: 1:18pm, 13 May 2020Updated: 11:13pm, 13 May 2020

Hours after top negotiators finished up their first teleconference since the US-China phase one trade deal was signed in January, a blog thought to have ties to officials in Beijing published an aggressive attack on Washington’s perceived muddying of the agreement with the row over coronavirus.

“Everyone with a discerning eye can see that there is a clear logic behind these actions,” read a post on Friday on Taoran Notes, a WeChat account affiliated with the official Economic Daily newspaper, which was closely followed through more than a dozen rounds of US-China trade talks for the inside line from China’s negotiating team.

“Some people in the United States insist that ‘the election situation is greater than the epidemic situation’, and the political interests of the minority are placed above the lives of the majority. Essentially, this is a disregard for life.”

A few days later, the Global Times – a tabloid newspaper published by the People's Daily, the Communist Party's mouthpiece – published an English language-only article saying “sources close to the Chinese government” and “a former Chinese trade official” were “calling for new negotiations and a tit-for-tat approach on spiralling trade issues”.

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Neither outlet said the trade deal, barely a few months old, was doomed. Indeed, both trumpeted the importance of the accord.

But the articles show the division that the phase one deal has sewn in Beijing. As in Washington, the deal was not without its detractors in China, even during the negotiating period, as indicated by the dramatic collapse in talks last May, when perceived hardliners in Beijing reacted after seeing the proposed text of the deal for the first time.

Worsening US-China ties over the spread of coronavirus this year have not helped change the minds of the naysayers, even if few believe the Chinese government is serious about renegotiating. Instead, the coronavirus dispute has given a platform for hawks on both sides of the agreement.

“The Global Times report reflects the fact that there are people who are unhappy with the current situation with regard to the Sino-US relations, but [the report] does not reflect the official position and such opinion has always existed in both countries,” said Wu Xinbo, director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.