By Zhong Sheng
On Sept. 11, the Customs Tariff Commission of China’s State Council announced the first group of US imports for exclusion from the initial round of additional tariffs.
Sixteen types of US products will be excluded from the first round of additional Chinese tariffs with effect from Sept. 17, 2019, and affected import enterprises are allowed to apply for refunds of collected duties.
It is a rational decision eying the overall picture.
There is no winner in a trade war. China does not want a trade war, but it is not afraid of one and it will fight one if necessary. China’s position on this has never changed. The country’s countermeasures are a just act responding to the US who unilaterally launched and continuously escalated the economic and trade frictions.
The exemption lists reflect China’s rationality and restraint it has always exercised in dealing with the China-US trade disputes. All the countermeasures taken by the Chinese side are not for the sake of confrontation, and the tariff increase is not aiming at earning more tariffs, either.
Since China started the tariff exclusion process for US imports on a trial basis on May 13, relevant Chinese departments have carefully examined eligible applications and taken on board related suggestions.
Will the additional tariffs make it difficult for enterprises to find substitutes? Will they cause negative structural impacts on relevant industries? Will they lower the life quality of Chinese citizens? These questions have all been taken into consideration, which demonstrates the responsibility the Chinese government is fulfilling for its own people and enterprises in China.
However, some people in the US distorted the exemption lists unveiled by China, saying the lists are a signal that China is not able to take the impacts of the trade friction.
What these people said is one-sided and is intended to make hypes. Chinese economy is resilient and China is not afraid of any external challenge. China has the only complete industrial chain in the world, and this chain cannot be easily destroyed by the US tariff rise. In the short term, the US tariffs will only highlight the value of China in the global industrial chain.
According to a survey by US-China Business Council, 87 percent of interviewed US enterprises had no plans to leave China. Rhodium Group statistics showed that US enterprises invested $6.8 billion in China in the first half of 2019, which is 1.5% more than in the same periods of the previous two years.
China has always been staying lucid in doing its own things well. The measures it has taken to continuously take off external pressure, such as promoting high-quality development, expanding opening-up and improving business environment, have been lauded by the world.
Tim Stratford, chairman of American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China), said recently that the confidence of AmCham China’s members in opening up market by the Chinese government is at a historic level, and over half of its members still consider China as one of their top three investment destinations worldwide.
The increasingly strong appeals shown by the Chinese market well responded to the unreal “decoupling” illusions of some US politicians.
Over the past more than a year of trade frictions, China has spared no effort to inject impetus into sustained and healthy economic development and to improve the life quality of its people. Facts once again prove that China is making the optimal choice by exerting rationality, doing its own things well and maintaining its own stability when facing various external uncertainties.
(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)
