Opinion | Beijing ‘pessimistic’ Xi Jinping and Donald Trump can make any progress on trade – if they meet
- There is uncertainty over whether the talks will happen at next month’s G20 in Argentina, but even if they do ‘the chances of a significant outcome are slim’
- Observers say Chinese officials still aren’t sure what Washington is asking for
Beijing is pessimistic that there will be any significant progress on easing trade tensions if possible talks between the Chinese and US presidents go ahead next month, according to observers.
They said that officials in Beijing still did not fully grasp exactly what Washington was demanding from them, and that even if the two leaders did meet, it would not reduce the confrontation over trade and security issues.
Officials from both sides are seeking to arrange for Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina next month.
But there is uncertainty over whether the talks will actually happen. The Wall Street Journal, citing officials, on Friday reported that the US would not restart trade talks unless China offered a “concrete proposal” to address Washington’s concerns on “forced technology transfer and other economic issues”.
Lu Xiang, an expert on US-China relations with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the threat of more pressure from Washington indicated that Beijing had not yielded to Washington’s demands as it had expected.
The US government should “show some credibility” and not make “a bottomless pit” of demands on China, he said. “But it is unclear what the US administration is asking for,” Lu said.
“The chances of [Xi and Trump] reaching a significant outcome are pretty slim,” he said. “The US should provide solid evidence of China’s mandatory technology transfer or technology theft, if there is any. It should seek to solve the problem via legal means, and China is able to fix the problems within its current legal system.”
In the previous trade talks that ended in deadlock, Washington gave Beijing a list of demands that included a sharp reduction in the trade surplus with the US, as well as an overhaul of its government subsidies and industrial policies, especially the hi-tech “Made in China 2025” strategy – all of which were unacceptable to Beijing.