Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chief of the Chinese side of the China-US comprehensive economic dialogue, on Wednesday held a virtual meeting with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The Chinese side said that “the two sides had broad discussions over the macroeconomic situation and multilateral and bilateral cooperation” and the two sides agreed that the China-US economic relationship is “very important,” according to a statement released by the Xinhua News Agency. The US side also released very brief information of the call. In addition, both sides mentioned that they are willing to have further discussions. The latest phone call was held following Liu’s phone talk with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on May 27. These two phone calls mark the full recovery of communications between senior Chinese and US economic officials. This seems prominent in the context of the overall tensions between the two countries. Since the US launched a trade war against China in 2018, bilateral relations have worsened rapidly. Some US elites’ repeatedly mobilized the country to confront China, which has led the US to suppress China into high-tech decoupling and comprehensive strategic containment. Today, the US has used up most of its tricks. But in retrospect, the economic and trade war has produced almost no effect. China-US trade did not decline last year, and increased by about 50 percent in the first four months of 2021. After more than three years of the trade war, we believe China and the US have had a better understanding of each other’s strengths and the role played by the two countries’ economic relations. In the current interactions between the two countries, the information released by senior economic officials turned out to be the most peaceful and positive. This has increased people’s impression that the current China-US cooperation in trade and economy is calmer and more rational than in other areas. Facts have proven that the economies of China and the US are inseparable. The Trump administration’s imposition of high tariffs on Chinese products triggered fierce retaliation from China. However, trade between the two countries continued to rise sharply after a brief decline, The US hoped that a trade war could make the manufacturing industry return to the country and reduce its deficits, and that it could weaken China’s economy to force Beijing to make political concessions. Yet none of these goals were achieved, and a large part of those additional tariffs were borne by US companies and families. It can be regarded as a conclusion that the US-launched trade war against China has been a terrible failure. The US is more fragile than it was three or four years ago. Political shifts as well as the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic have further complicated US problems.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times News Exchange Item
