Exclusive | China-US trade talks unofficially resume, but progress hamstrung by mutual ‘deep mistrust’, sources say
Washington wants Beijing to make swift changes to its economic model because it doubts it will make them gradually
China and the United States held unofficial talks last week but a deep and mutual distrust continues to hamper efforts to de-escalate their trade dispute, people close to the situation in Beijing and Washington told the South China Morning Post.
According to sources, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called China’s Vice-Premier Liu He last week in a bid to persuade Beijing to approve US chip maker Qualcomm’s takeover deal of the Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors.
Several countries, including China, had a say in the matter because Qualcomm sells its products globally and the proposed merger could have been seen as giving the company a price monopoly.
The refusal by Beijing’s antitrust regulators to approve the deal – eight other countries cleared it – effectively made Qualcomm the first casualty of the trade dispute, even though China said it had nothing to do with the issue.
The sources also said that senior officials from the US treasury and commerce departments spoke to Liao Min, one of Beijing’s main trade negotiators and deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, a Communist Party policymaking body.