YEREVAN. – The visit of the U.S. President Donald Trump to China was indeed successful first of all because a face-to-face conversion is the most convenient way of building relationship and establishing mutual trust between leaders, representative of China’s Institute of World Economics and Politics, professor Xue Li believes.
Mr. Li, director of the international strategy department at the Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP), does not share the opinion of some western experts who doubt President Trump managed to reach any significant progress during his state visit to China.
“This visit was indeed successful. First of all, a face-to-face conversion is the most convenient way of building relationship and establishing mutual trust between leaders, and this is even more significant in great power politics. Secondly, this visit made new record of Sino-US trade of 253.5 billion USD worth of trade deals signed. Thirdly, with concerns to the trade issues, China and the United States have come to the agreement to boost natural gas trade. In addition, as the Ministry of Finance of the PRC confirmed on 10November that China will further relax the limit on foreign investment in the banking industry and other financial businesses,” Xue Li told Armenian News-NEWS.am.
He admits that China’s efforts alone cannot rectify the trade imbalances.
“The United States has set too many trade barriers on high-tech products to China, and which room for improvement is more than obvious,” he added.
The analyst said a $250 billion deal is more than obvious to suggest that China and the United States still have a lot more potential in economic cooperation, even in matured fields such as airplane exports, let alone natural resources. What also need to be mentioned here is that cooperation in e-commerce will become the next new highlights, he emphasized.
“The Trump administration will undoubtedly bring up further request on China. What I would like to point out is that his “American first” policy has a strong root in economic nationalism, and this is not adequate in the age of economic globalisation. The United States is not competitive in fields such as textile industry, daily necessities industry, steel manufacturing and so forth, and it is not wise to predict an industrial backflow. That said, China has more room for improvement in the financial industry and high-tech industry. Promoting reform with opening up, breaking the barriers set by interest groups is also a choice of Chinese policy-makers,” he said.