bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Sidney Leng

Beijing has remained unusually quiet over US President Donald Trump’s latest threat of imposing tariffs on, essentially, all Chinese imports.
In the past two days – since Trump said in an interview with CNBC on Friday that he was ready to take a more aggressive approach by imposing tariffs on US$500 billion worth of Chinese products – neither the Chinese commerce ministry nor the foreign ministry has issued any statements.
The Chinese state media, from the official Xinhua news agency to Global Times, did not cover Trump’s fresh threat, and an opinion piece published by People’s Daily on Saturday did not include the potential US$500 billion tariffs.
The silence in Beijing is unusual, but comes after Chinese media were told not to “over-report” the trade war, to avoid spreading panic.
I’m ready to put tariffs on every import from China, US President Donald Trump warns
Previous threats drew a more pronounced response, albeit that Trump’s latest threat was just that, and not an official announcement.
When Washington announced it was to impose tariffs on US$50 billion worth of Chinese products on June 15, China’s Ministry of Commerce immediately issued a statement, at 1:30am local time that Saturday, announcing its retaliatory measures, with a detailed list of US products that Beijing would target for additional import duties.


When Trump later announced tariffs on another US$200 billion of goods, Beijing swiftly responded by saying it would adopt a “quantitative and qualitative” countermeasure, although it fell short of providing specifics.
Faxed requests this weekend to the ministry of commerce and foreign ministry went unanswered.
Iris Pang, chief China economist of ING Bank, said China was resisting responding to Trump’s rhetoric this time, partly because the US leader may be only bluffing.
Shameful. Disgraceful. A tragic mistake. And that’s what Donald Trump’s own party thought of Putin summit
The threat of targeting US$500 billion of Chinese merchandise was not new and the harsh proposal may have been a tactic to shift attention from widespread criticism of his meeting days earlier with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, she said.
“It won’t bring any concerns [for China] unless a clear timeline of implementation is released,” she said.
Don’t mention the trade war: what China doesn’t want people to know in its dispute with the US
Another potential reason is that China has nothing to add to its previous statements.
The People’s Daily editorial on Saturday, for instance, said Washington would “be hoisted by its own petard” and “find its own way back from losing its way in launching a trade war with China”, reiterating an official Chinese position that a trade war is bad for everyone.
“China will suffer some damage from this trade war with the US... and we have to take some countermeasures,” the editorial stated.


“It’s necessary for China to give the US a head-on, painful attack, so that it could truly realise that its trade war is a disaster for the US, other countries and the whole world.”
In real terms, China could not match the scale of Trump’s suggested US$500 billion of tariffs – roughly the total value of Chinese products imported by the US last year.
According to US data, China imported only US$130 billion of US goods, meaning that Beijing would eventually have to resort to non-tariff measures.

China and the US have so far imposed a 25 per cent tariff on US$34 billion of each other’s goods. Tariffs on a further US$16 billion are due to take force in the coming weeks, while Washington is planning a 10 per cent duty on US$200 billion of Chinese goods.
Apart from the threats of further tariffs, Trump has criticised the recent depreciation of the Chinese yuan.
Trump tweeted on Friday: “China, the European Union and others have been manipulating their currencies and interest rates lower, while the US is raising rates while the dollar gets stronger and stronger with each passing day – taking away our big competitive edge. As usual, not a level playing field...”
Donald Trump accuses China and EU of illegal currency manipulation
China has largely ignored Trump’s allegations on the yuan.
The People’s Bank of China, which is in charge of China’s exchange rate policy, has rarely responded to Trump in public. But the central bank’s governor Yi Gang has previously indicated that China
would not use the yuan exchange rate as a weapon in the trade war with the US.
A weaker yuan against the US dollar can in theory help Chinese exports to the US, because Chinese products will be more competitive in price in the US market.
ING economist Pang said she believed the recent depreciation of the yuan, which has hit its lowest level in a year against the US dollar, was a market response to a strengthening dollar and not a form of “qualitative” fightback from Beijing.


Why China may be better placed than US in tussle for rare earths

Trump’s new national security blueprint aims to combat China’s rise in Latin America

China’s He Lifeng has ‘constructive, in-depth’ call with Trump officials Bessent and Greer

As China defies US tech blockade, can local AI chipmakers capture Nvidia’s market share?

US-China trade war

Why is Beijing unusually muted since Donald Trump’s latest US$500 billion trade war threat?

US President Donald Trump repeated his threat of tariffs on US$500 billion of Chinese goods in a television interview on Friday. Photo: Bloomberg

China's central bank governor Yi Gang arrives for the EU-China High-level Economic Dialogue at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee

News

China

Economy

China Economy

Diplomacy

Business

China Business

Various possible reasons behind the lack of specific retaliation to the threat of tariffs on the total value of Chinese products imported by the US


US-China trade war: All stories

China economy