As China appointed a new trade envoy – prompting conflicting speculation − state news outlet China Daily said the United States should “stop whining about itself being a victim in global trade”.
The newspaper said in an editorial: “The US is not getting ripped off by anybody…rather… [it] has been taking a free ride on the globalisation train.”.
China Daily characterised the US’s behaviour as “capricious and destructive”.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports, Beijing has unexpectedly appointed a new trade envoy, with officials warning that the US’s “tariff barriers and trade bullying” is having a serious impact on the global economic order.
Li Chenggang, a former assistant commerce minister and WTO ambassador, is taking over from veteran trade negotiator Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen.
The shift comes as Beijing refuses to back down in an escalating trade war with Washington, triggered by US President Donald Trump’s hefty tariffs on Chinese goods.
Separately on Wednesday, Beijing announced that its GDP grew by 5.4% between January and March, compared with the same period a year earlier − a figure that has exceeded expectations.
The BBC cites Reuters as reporting that one expert said of the appointment of the new trade envoy that the change was “very abrupt and potentially disruptive” given the current trade tensions, adding that Wang also had experience of negotiating with the US since the first Trump administration.
“It might be that in the view of China’s top leadership, given how tensions have continued escalating, they need someone else to break the impasse… and finally start negotiating,” said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior advisor to the Conference Board’s China Centre.
However, Reuters said another analyst suggested the move could just be a “routine promotion” that happened to coincide with a period of tension.
[Image: Territory of American Canada – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109320683]