US-China rivalry: trade talks key to getting relations back on track, insiders say

With tensions bubbling over on multiple fronts, ‘it’s really only the trade negotiation groups that have any frequent effective communication’, head of US business group says

Trade talks could provide a ‘starting point’ for the resolution of other issues, Chinese academic and government adviser says

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Trade talks could be vital to improving wider US-China ties, observers say. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00pm, 5 Nov 2020Updated: 12:11am, 6 Nov 2020

Trade and industry groups could provide the catalyst for repairing China-US relations, insiders said on Thursday, as the world continues to wait for the result of the US presidential election.

“Essentially between the US and China, it’s really only the trade negotiation groups that have any frequent effective communication,” Greg Gilligan, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said in an interview.

Since an interim, phase one, deal to resolve the trade war was signed in January, the countries’ trade negotiation teams – led by Vice-Premier Liu He on the Chinese side, and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the US side – had been in regular contact and treated their negotiations “very seriously and diligently”, Gilligan said.

“They are in conversation every few weeks or each month,” he said.

Whoever was in the White House come 2021, the talks would continue, although if Joe Biden were to win there was the possibility the two sides might also resume their stalled talks on establishing a bilateral investment, he said.

Shi Yinhong, a Chinese government adviser and professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, said Beijing was expected to seek a resumption of high-level talks with Washington if Biden became president.

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