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The U.S. misjudges situation, opportunities and time are on China’s side

A seminar on Sino-US economic and trade relations was held at Tsinghua University on June 13. Participants believed that under the slogan of “America first”, the current U.S. government transferred domestic contradictions, made a series of false accusations against many countries and regions, especially China, and tried to impose extreme pressure on China on its own terms. Faced with this situation, China’s position has never changed: China does not want a trade war, but it is not afraid of one and it will fight one if necessary. China has the confidence and ability to meet all challenges and work with other countries to safeguard the multilateral trading system and the free trade principle.

Ruan Zongze, executive vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said that China was unwilling to see the U.S. provoke and escalate trade disputes and China was forced to take countermeasures. China still advocates cooperation, but cooperation needs principles. The U.S. should be responsible for Sino-U.S. economic and trade frictions. Because first, the U.S. lacks the habit of retrospection, who always blames others when facing problems but actually shifts its responsibilities to others. Second, the U.S. does not understand China correctly. In fact, China is not the question, but the answer. Third, the U.S. misjudged the situation, believing that other countries would follow it with a single order.

Xue Lan, dean of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University, delivered a speech focusing on the field of science and technology. When talking about the issue of intellectual property protection, Xue Lan pointed out that China has made unprecedented progress in the field in less than 40 years, which promoted China’s ability to innovate in science and technology, and to become a very worrying opponent of the U.S. It is impossible to achieve this without a sound intellectual property protection system.

Bai Chongen, dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, believes that the deep cause of the U.S. trade deficit lies in the country’s failure to handle its domestic policies well — it did not compensate those whose interests were lost during the trade or try to solve the issue of imbalance in incomes under the background of the rapid development of technologies. Some American politicians ignore the underlying economic causes of trade deficits and China’s efforts for improving trade balance over the years. They also unilaterally exaggerate the disadvantages of the deficits and lay the blame on other countries, especially China, to try to change the terms of trade by various pretexts in hope of gaining more benefits and at the same time transfer public attention on improper domestic policies to alleviate pressures on the government.

Yan Yilong, deputy dean of the Institute for Contemporary China Studies at Tsinghua University, pointed out that observation of the Sino-U.S. game can not be confined to trade frictions, but should be placed in the context of unprecedented changes in a century. The unilateralism of the U.S. is in fact the “America First” strategy, which is an unjust cause that finds scant support. From the perspective of time, trend and public endorsement, time and trend are on China’s side, and China is fully capable of coping with the game with the U.S..

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]