US-China trade war: ‘winner takes all’ means both sides lose, Beijing’s ambassador to Washington says
- Too much emphasis on competition instead of cooperation, Cui Tiankai tells gathering in Michigan ahead of latest top level talks
- Problems facing two countries not black and white, zero-sum mindset not the solution, he says
China and the United States should stop thinking in terms of win and lose, and not overstate the challenges facing them, Beijing’s top envoy to Washington said, as US officials prepare to travel to the Chinese capital for the latest round of trade negotiations next week.
Speaking at an event organised by the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan, Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the US, said that “too much emphasis” had been put on competition and that the two sides should focus more on cooperation for mutual benefit.
Relations between the two countries and their companies would only suffer under the destructive nature of a “zero-sum” or “winner takes all” mindset, he said.
“The real story in business is not that black and white,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. “We need to develop even stronger relationships on the basis of coordination, cooperation and stability.”
China and the United States have been locked in a trade war since July that has seen them impose hefty tariffs on each other’s imports. Further punitive action is on the cards if a deal is not reached before the end of a truce agreed by Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Buenos Aires in December in less than three weeks’ time.
Hopes for a resolution took a knock on Friday when Trump said he was unlikely to meet Xi before the March 1 deadline. Failure to reach a settlement could see the US increase the tariffs it imposed on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods in September from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.