China's commerce minister has urged the US to drop "discriminatory" sanctions against his country and give "equal treatment" to Chinese firms.
Wang Wentao's spokeswoman said the minister had told his US counterpart Gina Raimondo on her visit earlier this week that Beijing wants a level playing field for Chinese companies doing business in the US.
"China demands the US give equal treatment to Chinese enterprises investing in the US in terms of market access, regulatory enforcement, public procurement and policy support," said Shu Jueting. "China expressed serious concerns about the U.S.' discriminatory [Section] 301 tariffs."
US President Joe Biden's administration has continued the trade war with Beijing begun under his predecessor Donald Trump. It has blocked the export of high-spec microchip manufacturing technology to China, targeted electronics giant Huawei and social media app TikTok, and prosecuted staff of pharmaceutical firms for exporting ingredients for the painkilling drug fentanyl to the US.
"We believe that a better way to de-risk is to bring China-U.S. economic and trade relations back to a stage of sound and steady development," Shu added.
Raimondo said on Tuesday she was "leaving with some optimism" after arriving with little hope of reaching agreement.
Huo Jianguo, a vice chairman of the Beijing-based China Society for World Trade Organization Studies, warned that "decoupling" the two economic giants was mutually self-destructive.
"Cooperation instead of decoupling yields win-win results for both the US and China," Huo told Global Times. "Most US companies in China yielded profits and many have announced plans to expand investment in China this year, since the economy remains a stabilizer of global economic growth."