Source: Observer Network
In an interview pre-recorded and broadcast on October 17 local time on Fox Business News Network Mornings with Maria, U.S. President Trump answered a series of questions raised by host Maria Bartiromo about China-US trade and tariffs on China.
Regarding tariffs, Trump considered the issue complex, and later even accused former U.S. President Nixon of being the “initiator” of all of this.
“You know, Richard Nixon, he’s allowed this to happen, he’s the one who’s opened the door to China, and I want to say, is it good or bad?
“He (Nixon) released that power (meaning China),” Trump then commented on China, “we have a very strong adversary, and they only respect strength, they do, they only recognize power.”
In February 1972, then US President Nixon was invited to visit China. That visit was called "the week that changed the world". The Chinese and American governments signed the Joint Communique (also known as the Shanghai Communique) in Shanghai on February 27th and published it on the 28th.
The publication of the Shanghai Communiqué marks that after more than 20 years of confrontation between the two governments, China and the United States began to develop in the direction of normalization of relations, laying the foundation for bilateral relations between the two countries.
February 21, 2022 is the 50th anniversary of Nixon's visit to China. Wang Wenbin, then spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, expressed at a regular press conference that day that he hoped that the United States would work with China to draw experience and wisdom from the past 50 years of history, inherit and carry forward the spirit of the Shanghai Communique, and jointly promote the return of Sino-US relations to healthy and stable development.
At the end of December last year, Trump had just won the U.S. presidential election and had not officially returned to the White House. Thomas Friedman, a well-known columnist for The New York Times and author of "The World Is Flat", once wrote a commentary and suggested: "If I were Trump, I would try a 'Nixon Visit China'-style action to reconcile the United States and China."
In any case, if we want to remain stable in the 21st century, China and the United States must work together, and once competition and cooperation are completely left in opposition, then a disorderly 21st century will wait for both sides.
In an interview broadcast on Fox Business News Network on October 17, local time, Trump admitted that the high tariff blackmail he had previously threatened to restart against China was "not sustainable." However, Trump still blamed China for the current deadlock in Sino-US trade negotiations, claiming that it was caused by China's recent introduction of new rules on rare earths.
When asked if such high tariffs were sustainable and what impact they might have on the economy, Trump replied: "Not sustainable, but that's the numbers." When he shook the blame, he claimed this: "They (China) forced me to do this."
Anyone with a discerning eye can tell who caused this round of Sino-US trade deadlock at a glance, but Trump "pretended to be confused while he understood it." In fact, it is precisely because the United States has continuously increased its export controls and restrictions on China since September this year that the current tensions have escalated. China's various countermeasures are to firmly defend national interests and are "necessary passive defensive behavior."
Feng Chucheng, founding partner of independent consulting firm Hutong Research, told the Financial Times that since the recent economic and trade talks between China and the United States in Madrid, Spain, both sides seem to want to avoid escalation.
However, this trend has changed after the U.S. decided to tighten export controls against Chinese companies in September this year, which further restricted China’s development of advanced semiconductor capabilities.
Feng Chucheng believes that from China's perspective, these US actions are not only substantively escalating tensions, but also once again confirming the Trump administration's "low credibility."
On October 12, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of China told reporters about the recent Chinese related economic and trade policy measures, saying that on October 9, the Chinese side issued export control measures on related items such as rare earth, which is the normal behavior of the Chinese government to improve its own export control system in accordance with laws and regulations.
The spokesman said that for a long time, the United States has generalized national security, abused export controls, adopted discriminatory practices against China, and implemented unilateral long-arm jurisdiction measures on many products such as semiconductor equipment and chips. Especially since the China-US Economic and Trade Talks in Madrid in September, in just over 20 days, the United States has continued to introduce a series of new restrictions on China. The US behavior seriously harms China's interests and seriously undermines the atmosphere of economic and trade talks between the two sides. China firmly opposes this.
The spokesman stressed that the threat of high tariffs is not the right way to deal with China. For the tariff war, China's position is consistent, we are not willing to fight, but we are not afraid to fight. China urges the United States to correct the wrong practices as soon as possible, take the key consensus of the two heads of state call as the lead, safeguard the difficult consultation results, continue to play the role of the Sino-U.S. economic and trade consultation mechanism, on the basis of mutual respect and equal consultation, through dialogue to solve their respective concerns, properly manage differences, safeguard the stability, healthy and sustainable development of Sino-U.S. economic and trade relations.