World

Did China Blink In The Trade War With Trump?

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Ryan Pickrell China/Asia Pacific Reporter
Font Size:

The Chinese president appeared to offer President Donald Trump a handful of trade concessions in a speech Tuesday, but it is unclear if Beijing will come through on its promises.

Washington and Beijing are locked in a fierce battle over trade, with each side threatening the other with hard-hitting tariffs on key exports, but Chinese President Xi Jinping signaled Tuesday that China may be willing to make certain compromises on trade.

Xi vowed to greatly improve market access, strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, and expand imports by reducing trade barriers. “We will considerably reduce auto import tariffs, and at the same time reduce import tariffs on some other products,” he explained at the yearly Boao Forum. The markets seemed to respond positively.

The Chinese president’s comments followed Trump’s criticisms on Twitter of China’s high tariffs on foreign vehicle imports.

Whether or not Xi’s remarks constitute trade concessions remains to be seen, as most of the Chinese president’s statements were reiterations of past promises, many of which have gone unfulfilled. In many ways, Xi’s speech rehashed previous addresses, such as the one he delivered in Davos last year.

“There is little new in this speech, these broad promises have been made before, and none of them go to the real heart of the U.S. angst over China,” Bill Bishop, author of the Sinocism China Newsletter, explained to Axios. “Maybe this time the mooted reforms will be implemented, and maybe Xi is leaving it to his subordinates to quickly fill in the specific details and timelines, but overall I thought this speech was predictable and underwhelming.”

The promise to reduce auto import tariffs was actually announced last month by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, and China has yet to deliver on that promise.

While Chinese leadership often condemns protectionism and promotes multilateral cooperation in globalized, China stands accused of practicing protectionism and engaging coercive economic aggression. Beijing touts market liberalization but is often called out for placing unfair restrictions on foreign companies pursuing greater market access.

The Chinese government also often fails to clearly articulate how it is going to address the concerns at the heart of the U.S.-China trade dispute.

“There’s been a lot of happy talk over the past year that China is going to liberalize and change, but that happy talk has been as vague as could possibly be,” Dr. Scott Kennedy, deputy director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Daily Caller News Foundation before the Chinese president’s speech at the Boao Forum.

“Everyone remembers five years ago, China issued a document saying they were going to issue major market reforms. People pointed to that as a potential turning point in China’s economic governance. That was followed by a nothingburger,” he said. “If there’s any seriousness in China’s position, it’s time for Xi Jinping to put up or shut up.”

Follow Ryan on Twitter

Send tips to ryan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel