China Not Ready to Cut Trade With US Despite Commercial War - Foreign Ministry

16:19 GMT, 22 October 2018

BEIJING (Sputnik) - China is not ready to minimize its trade with the United States despite the ongoing trade conflict between the two countries, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister said on Monday.

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"We do not want to minimize our trade with the United States. The volume of the Chinese-US trade depends on the US side," Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui told reporters.

He added that China was primed for the globalization of the economy stressing that the government "had been fighting for China joining the World Trade Organization for 18 years, and we had fulfilled all our pledges — we have decreased the duties, we have opened access to all the spheres" of the Chinese market."

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Zhang went on to say that China was developing the market economy and local "producers will have other opportunities, they will land contracts" — if not in the United States, "then in other countries and in other markets."

China and the United States are currently engaged in a trade war triggered by US President Donald Trump's announcement in June that $50 billion worth of Chinese goods would be subject to 25 percent tariffs, in a bid to fix the US-Chinese trade deficit. Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of trade duties against each other.