China Plays Down North Korea Issue In US Trade Ties

By Vince Morkri

     BEIJING (MNI) - Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Qian Keming said Monday that

the country's growth model and trade relations were on "solid footing" for the

second half of the year, but decoupled the ongoing nuclear crisis on the Korean

Peninsula from U.S.-China trade ties.

     North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile late Friday,

saying it had the capability to strike anywhere in the United States. In

response, U.S. President Donald Trump said that despite making billions of

dollars in trade from the United States, China still had not resolved the North

Korea issue. 

     The North Korean test followed one made earlier this month, when it

launched an ICBM it said was capable of hitting Alaska.

     "The peninsula nuclear issue is not relevant to bilateral trade issues. We

cannot mix these two issues together," Qian said at a press conference on

China's foreign trade at the State Council Information Office. 

     "China will continue to work with the international community for the 

denuclearization of the peninsula," Qian said. "China is ready to work with the

U.S. to promote more balanced growth of our bilateral trade relations" based on

the recently proposed one-year plan, he added.

     At their Comprehensive Economic Dialogue earlier this month in Washington

D.C., China and the United States failed to reach agreement on the steps needed

to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China, and Trump has grown increasingly

antagonistic toward China after striking a friendly tone with Chinese President

Xi Jinping at their summit in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, in April. 

     Qian said China's foreign trade had maintained "sound momentum" in the

first half of he year, and pointed to some successes in China's trade

relationship with the United States, notably the agreement to allow China's

cooked poultry into the United States, while China has opened its market to U.S.

beef.

     But Qian also made a pointed reference to "protectionist" countries that

are increasingly trying to shut the door to foreign trade and relations. "Some

of these countries are citing widening income gaps and using it to look inward,"

Qian said. "Such a shift in policy will have a long-term effect on global

trade."

     He also said that although China's opening further to foreign trade had

been "very well received" globally, "some foreign companies do not know very

much about China's policies on opening up and using foreign capital," such as

its creation of seven free-trade zone regions earlier this year and its

continued paring of investment restrictions. 

     Long Guoqiang, vice president of the State Council's Development Research

Center, said at the press conference that both the United States and China had

benefitted from their trade relationship, but added that the U.S. does not need

to resort to "austerity measures," such as drastically cutting imports of

Chinese goods and services.

     "We need to implement the consensus of the two presidents at the Mar-a-Lago

resort, meaning having an open, mutually beneficial relationship to benefit both

sides," he said. "We need to resolve this issue in the broader context of the

global economy."

     "China alone cannot resolve this issue by expanding imports" of U.S. goods,

he added.

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 (10) 8532-5998; email: vince.morkri@marketnews.com

--MNI BEIJING Bureau; +1 202-371-2121; email: john.carter@mni-news.com

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