The ministry spokesperson said the Chinese government will firmly safeguard the interests of the nation and its people. Our reporter Wang Hui has more details about the meeting.

WANG HUI BEIJING "The Ministry of Commerce has just held its weekly briefing this morning. The 30 minutes briefing covered 10 questions, and 7 of them were about the current China-US trade disputes. The briefing room were packed by journalists and cameras. You can tell, the trade dispute did draw a lot of attention. As we know, July 6th is a critical timeline, as the US announced earlier that it will impose additional 25% of tariffs on Chinese exports of 34 billion US dollars. In response, China announced to impose 25% of tariffs on the same value of American exports to China, including on agricultural products and autos. So, today, I asked the spokesman at the press conference if the US implements its plan on July 6th, will China correspondingly make its list take effect? And if the two countries make these moves, will this indicates the trade war between the two countries start? Let's see how the spokesman, Gao Feng, responded."

GAO FENG SPOKESPERSON, CHINESE MINISTRY OF COMMERCE "China will not fire the first shot, but if the US takes these actions, we will take all necessary measures to retaliate. For other countries, they understand and support China's stance. China will work with other countries to oppose the unilateralism and protectionism, in order to protect the interests of people around the world."

WANG HUI BEIJING "As we know, the economies of China and the US are highly intertwined, so some people believe that the tariffs impose by the US on Chinese exports will also hit hard on those foreign-invested companies in China. The spokesman Gao Feng said that, among the America's list of items with the value of 34 billion US dollar, items of 20-billion US dollars are produced by foreign-invested companies in China. So, if the US' plan takes effect, it will not only hit Chinese companies, but also foreign-invested companies in China including American ones."