China Briefing | US-China trade war: Xi and Trump may not be friends any more, but ...

Personal diplomacy between the presidents of China and the United States helped break a stalemate over North Korea. Now as both sides launch fresh tariffs, another summit could be key to cooling trade tensions

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China is looking to increase its self-sufficiency in areas including farming as the trade war with the US continues to grow. Photo: AP

Published: 10:47am, 30 Sep 2018Updated: 10:46am, 30 Sep 2018

Following China and the United States’ imposition of fresh tariffs on each other’s goods last week, hopes are fading that the world’s two biggest economies will soon restart talks to avoid a protracted trade war, which is expected to dampen global economic growth.

As US President Donald Trump threatens to slap tariffs on virtually all Chinese imports, China has remained defiant.

On the day when US tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods and China’s retaliatory duties on US$60 billion of US products came into effect, Beijing released a comprehensive white paper on the trade dispute. It accused Washington of bullying tactics and economic intimidation against China, and undermining the global trade and international order.

This was followed the next day with a high-profile press conference in which Wang Shouwen, the country’s deputy commerce minister, said it was difficult to hold trade talks with the US as Washington was holding “a knife” to China’s neck.

This came after Beijing declined Washington’s invitation to hold trade talks because of the latter’s most recent tariffs.