Politics
13:58, 01-Aug-2017
Opinion: US should stop blaming China for trade deficit, DPRK nuclear issue
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By Xinhua News Agency
Clearly, China-U.S. relations are the world's most important bilateral relations and US President Donald Trump certainly knows this. Yet he still chooses to unfairly blame China for two unrelated issues.
In his latest tweets, Trump linked the US trade deficit with China to the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk," Trump wrote. "We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"
The US leader erred in at least three aspects in his most recent tweets blasting China.
First, regarding the trade imbalance between China and the United States: It is the result of multiple factors, mostly attributed to the fact that China is the final assembly plant for most of the manufactured goods destined for the United States. That means China is taking the blame simply because it is the last stop of the production line.
China has made it clear that it does not intend to maintain a trade surplus with the United States and has been actively working with the US side to explore ways to restore the trade balance.
Also, it is worth noting that both countries have benefited from bilateral trade and the United States is by no means being exploited in the process.
Second, on the Korean nuclear issue, the crux of the matter is the decades-long animosity between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
As a neighbor of the DPRK, China knows well it has a lot to lose if the Korean Peninsula slides further away from denuclearization, so it has been making strenuous efforts, including organizing the Six Party Talks, to maintain the fragile calm on the peninsula and work toward an early solution to the problem.
Third, it is absurd to suggest that China could repay the so-called US generosity of allowing a huge trade deficit by "easily resolving" the Korea nuclear issue, as the two issues are in completely different domains and can not be considered tradeoffs for each other.
China wants balanced trade with the United States, and it also hopes for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. However, to realize these goals, Beijing needs a more cooperative partner in the White House, not one who piles blame on China for the United States' failures.
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