US-China tensions: really about trade? Hong Kong’s former leader CY Leung questions motives
Trade barriers are working ‘against market forces and human ingenuity’, the city’s former chief executive tells the SCMP’s China Conference in Kuala Lumpur
The comments by the city’s former chief executive on Wednesday came as Washington signalled it was considering imposing further tariffs on Chinese goods.
“Much of the trade friction between China and the US has stemmed ostensibly from the need on the part of the US to reduce its trade balance,” Leung said. But “what has not been discussed fully is that the US does not have the capacity to produce all the good it needs.”
He added: “This is where economists have openly questioned whether the root of recent tension is actually trade, and if it is indeed trade, they have also openly asked the US government not to conflate and confuse trade with other issues.”