BEIJING: China’s premier warned US officials on Tuesday that moves to “politicise” trade issues would prove “disastrous” for the global economy, state media reported.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is currently on a four-day bridge-building visit to China aimed at better managing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

But a meeting with Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday saw the top official lay into American trade curbs against Beijing, which Washington insists are necessary for its national security but China says are meant to clip its economic rise.

“Politicizing economic and trade issues and overstretching the concept of security will... seriously affect bilateral relations and mutual trust,” he told Raimondo, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency. They “also undermine the interests of enterprises and people of the two countries, and will have a disastrous impact on the global economy”, he added.

Relations between the two countries have plummeted to some of their lowest levels in decades, with US trade curbs near the top of the list of disagreements.

This month, Biden issued an executive order aimed at restricting certain US investments in sensitive high-tech areas in China — a move Beijing blasted as being “anti-globalisation”.

The long-anticipated rules, expected to be implemented next year, target sectors such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

Premier Li on Tuesday urged the United States to change tack, saying “the two sides should strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation, reduce friction and confrontation, and jointly promote world economic recovery and cope with global challenges”. While Li used their meeting to condemn US policy, Raimondo stressed the importance of open communication.

Pointing to areas of “global concern” like climate change, artificial intelligence and fentanyl addiction, she told Li that Washington wants to “work with you as two global powers to do what is right for all of humanity”.

“The world is expecting us to step up together to solve these problems,” she said.

Raimondo also reiterated the US position that it is not seeking to decouple its economy from China’s.

“We seek to maintain our $700 billion commercial relationship with China,” she said.

In a readout of the meeting, the US Department of Commerce said Raimondo had “underscored the US commitment to taking actions necessary to US national security,” as well as “ensuring fair and transparent treatment of US companies, and creating a level playing field for US workers and businesses”.

And in an earlier meeting on Tuesday with Vice Premier He Lifeng, she described the US-China commercial relationship as “one of the most consequential” in the world.

“Managing that relationship responsibly is critical to both of our nations and indeed to the whole world,” she said during a part of the meeting open to journalists.

She also raised what Washington sees as unfair trade practices by Beijing, according to a Department of Commerce readout, while emphasising the “importance of strengthening the protection of trade secrets for US businesses operating in China”.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2023