MOC: US claims against China groundless, inconsistent

The United States' allegation that China's policies and practices violate market principles and would lead to unfair competition is groundless and inconsistent with international economic and trade rules, said Gao Feng, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, on Thursday.

He made the remarks after being asked for comments regarding a new assessment report released by the US Trade Representative's office on Wednesday, which said the US needs to pursue new strategies and update its domestic trade tools to deal with China's "state-led, non-market policies and practices".

"Globally there are all sorts of different patterns of market-based economies. China's economic achievements in the past 40 years are due to its successful reform and opening-up policy, and also due to the effective combination of functions of the market mechanisms and the government, which are valuable experiences for the Chinese economic growth," he said.

"We have noticed the statement from the US that it would pursue new domestic trade tools. We believe, as a member of the World Trade Organization, that the US is obliged to abide by WTO rules, instead of creating a new set under the name of pursuing new strategies to practice unilateralism, protectionism, and bullying," he said.

China and the US have huge common interests, and cooperation is the only right choice, Gao said.

China hopes the US will adopt rational and pragmatic economic and trade policies to meet China halfway, and bring China-US relations back to the healthy and stable track based on the principles of mutual respect, mutual benefit and the win-win approach, he said, adding it is not only in line with the fundamental interests of the two nations and their people to do so, but also is the common expectation of the international community.

He also said the economic and trade teams of the two countries currently maintain normal communications.