Beijing, Washington hold deeply integrated, mutually beneficial ties: China

China and the United States have formed highly complementary, deeply integrated and mutually beneficial relations, as reflected by the statistics in a report recently released by the US-China Business Council (USCBC), Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Geng Shuang said on Friday.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, Geng said that China hopes the US could give ear to more rational voices in the country.

"We have noticed the report issued by the US-China Business Council. The views in the report are representative to some extent, and show that in the past period of time, US commercial and industrial fields and regional districts have been worried about the escalation of the China-US trade frictions, and expecting the two sides to solve the trade frictions properly through negotiations," Geng said.

Geng said the report indicated that concerning the goods trade, 265 US electoral districts saw a decline in the export volume to China in 2018, 157 of which saw a double-digit drop. The central and western US and the plain area, where soybeans and other agricultural products were exported, have been most severely affected; as to the service trade, the export volume to China declined in 100 electoral districts in 2017, while in 2016, the volume in 380 electoral districts showed a double-digit or even faster growth.

Geng said that against the backdrop of the China-US trade dispute, the US exports to China in 2018 increased by only 0.75 percent, while in the meantime, the growth rates were respectively 15.3 percent, 14.3 percent and 11.7 percent from South Korea, Japan and European Union.

"The statistics quoted in the report once again prove that the US and China have formed highly complementary, deeply integrated and mutually beneficial relations. The escalating trade dispute is accelerating the market shares loss by the US It damages the interests of the US commercial and industrial fields at first and ultimately damages the interests of the ordinary Americans. In general, trade dispute damages both the US itself and others, and the loss outweighs the gains. We hope the US can give ear to domestic rational voices and work together with China to reach a mutually beneficial and win-win deal through negotiations based on mutual respect, equality and mutual benefits, which not only agrees with the interests of the two countries and their peoples, but is also a common expectation of the international community," Geng said.

The USCBC recently issued the report to analyze the changes of the US voting districts’ goods and service exports to China in the past 10 years, and concluded that China remains a major destination for the US manufacturing and service industries, but the escalating US-China tensions and the uncertainty of the trade dispute would have a negative impact on the US enterprises to expand their markets in China.