Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Tuesday that his country does not have intentions to supplant the United States as the world leader, but Beijing would like the U.S. to “remove all unreasonable restrictions” in trade.
“China-U.S. relations today have once again come to a cross roads,” Wang said, according to CNBC. “While China opens wider to the U.S. and the rest of the world, we expect the U.S. to do the same to China and remove all unreasonable restrictions.
“In a word, China’s efforts and achievements of reform and opening up in the past several decades have been widely recognized. They should not be deliberately ignored or denied.”
Wang spoke while the world’s two largest economies remain deadlocked in a stalemate in the trade war that has been waging well over a year now. Among the biggest complaints from companies doing business in China is the issue of forced technology transfer and intellectual property theft.
Access to the Chinese market also has been another big issue for companies that want to do business there. China has taken some steps to increase access to foreign companies in industries like security firms while also passing a new foreign investment law that improves IP protections and limits, at least to some degree, forced tech transfers.
But greater access to China’s domestic market is at the top of the wish list for foreign companies that want to do business there, according to a recent survey from the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
The two sides are planning to meet to discuss trade again, and Wang said negotiations will likely “produce a positive outcome.”
“The trade frictions between China and the U.S. in the last year have inflicted losses on both countries, losses that should not have happened,” Wang said, adding that the two sides should “explore new areas of cooperation.”
