China standing up for global trading system

Beijing's refusal to capitulate to Washington's protectionist pressure, whether through trade tariffs or technological containment, has sent a clear message to the United States' other trade partners who have scrambled to finalize trade deals with the White House recently, senior economists said.

Trading rights are hard fought, and not arrived at through concessions, they added.

Time has run out for some US trade partners looking to make deals ahead of US President Donald Trump's July 9 deadline for tariffs to return to his originally proposed higher levels. Some countries are seeking to cut deals by sacrificing China's interests to obtain tariff relief for themselves.

Chen Wenling, former chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said: "China, with its firm countermeasures since the announcement of the US 'reciprocal' tariffs in April, is standing up for the integrity of the global trading system, which benefits all countries, not just China.

"Those who try to agree to any arrangement that comes at the cost of China's interests are shortsighted and will ultimately undermine their own interests as well," Chen told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

Vietnam recently reached a trade deal with Washington, one that would see the country's imports face a 20 percent tariff — lower than the 46 percent Trump had threatened in April. But Vietnamese goods would face a higher 40 percent tariff "on any transshipping" — when goods shipped from Vietnam originate from another country, such as China.

"China is pleased to see any parties resolve their trade differences with the US through equal consultations, but firmly opposes any attempt to reach a deal at the expense of China's interests," He Yongqian, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Commerce, said in a recent news conference. If such a situation were to occur, China would "resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its own interests", she said, adding that China is "conducting an assessment" of the trade deal the US has reached with Vietnam.

When Washington blinked in recent trade standoffs with Beijing, it wasn't a product of goodwill but of China's resolute and calibrated countermeasures that refused to outsource the costs of resistance to third nations, analysts said.

The US has eased export restrictions on China for chip design software and ethane. Software firms like Synopsys and Cadence said they will now sell their chip design tools to Chinese customers again. The US also removed limits on ethane exports to China that it had set just weeks ago.

"China's actions to the world are explicit: rights emerge not from what others allow, but what you fight for," Chen said.

The rest of the world needs to form a united front to oppose trade and technology wars, Chen said, stressing that the only way to achieve shared interests is by collectively safeguarding the stability of industrial and supply chains, maintaining multilateral trading systems and resisting hegemonic bullying.

Li Daokui, dean of the Institute for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking at Tsinghua University, said: "Most major trading partners will likely reach some form of agreement or extension with the US after the 90-day freeze on sweeping US tariffs expires on July 9."

However, the US government may impose high tariffs on a small number of trading partners considered by the US as uncooperative or less important, Li said, adding that this approach appears intended to serve as a warning to other countries.

With China's strategic importance in global supply chains, including rare earth, the country is in a better position to put forward its own demands, Li said during the Global Forum of Finance and Economics, part of the 2025 ZGC Forum, on Saturday.

"I believe that in the near future, China and the US should be able to reach a new trade agreement that is beneficial to both sides," he said.