A trade war between China and the US would be a disaster for the entire world. However, some are optimistic the two sides could fix the disputes despite tariffs of about 60 billion US dollars on Chinese goods. Pascal Lamy is one of them.

CGTN's Tian Wei caught up with Lamy on the sidelines of the China Development Forum. As the former Director-General of the World Trade Organization, he believes the strong business ties between China and the US would bring the two back to negotiations.

"There's a small risk, but I think overall they both have very strong interests," said Lamy.

Kevin Rudd said that there is a 50-50 prospect of fixing US-China trade conflicts, while Lamy said 20-80, with 80 meaning having hope, but depends on the US.

"If they are after reducing the trade deficit between US and China by a hundred billion yuan, forget about it, this is not a trade issue. If they are after blowing up the WTO, forget about it, this would not work. If they are after improving the US position versus China in trade, in security matters, then there is, in my view, room for appropriate negotiation – both US and China on the one side, and US, China, Europe, Japan, India within the WTO," said Lamy.

He also noted that China and the EU can still work together to prevent an impending trade war if the US decides to continue its tough measures.

"What China and EU can do together is protect the WTO system. If the US wants to exit WTO or they want to blow up WTO, there will be a coalition that would say we keep the WTO within ourselves, the sort of WTO minus US. We have this now on climate change, we have this in UNESCO. After all, we may enter a situation where the US may not be the indispensable partner in every direction," Lamy concluded.