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By AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, BEIJING, July 28 – US trade negotiators are returning to China this week for a new round of talks in a new city, but experts warn that a change of horizon will not quickly resolve the stalemate between the world's two largest economies.
Tuesday's and Wednesday's meetings in Shanghai will be the first face-to-face talks since the failed talks in May, after President Donald Trump accused China of failing to honor its commitments.
Washington and Beijing have so far hit each other with punitive tariffs covering more than 360 billion dollars of bilateral trade in a climate of tense tension.
Despite the agreement reached by Trump and President Xi Jinping at the G20 in Japan to end the hostilities, little progress has been made since then – and the US leader has irritated the Chinese side by saying that the economic downturn has taken place. obliged to conclude a commercial agreement.
The dispute is mainly about US requests from China to fight the so-called theft of American technology and to provide fair conditions for US companies based in that Asian country.
Trump has also irritated China by blacklisting telecommunications giant Huawei for reasons of national security.
"Essentially, China has tried to look at this as a purely economic matter and just wants to reach an agreement, but on the American side, it seems that … (they) are trying to link business with a strategic rivalry," Wang Chuanxing said. , professor at Tongji University. , told AFP.
"The common point is that both parties want to reach an agreement, so it's very important."
– Symbolic place –
The resumption of the talks is considered a positive step and the change of location of the country's main trading city, Shanghai, is also revealing.
"It could be an attempt to distance the consequences of the negotiations from Xi Jinping and the people who surround him immediately," said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at the Guanghua School of Management of Peking University.
The holding of talks in Shanghai also marks the beginning of a period of better relations, as evidenced by the Shanghai Communique of 1972 – a milestone in building diplomatic relations between the United States and China.
"The Shanghai Communiqué has a significance for China and the symbolism of this important agreement," said CNBC's Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary, adding that the invitation to Shanghai would be "good news that we will do progress to come, the week ".
However, Mr. Mnuchin, who will be joined in Shanghai by the US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, warned that there were "a lot of problems" and that he was expecting further discussions in the USA.
"This is not likely (they will sign an agreement) this week," said Shanghai-based professor Shen Dingli.
The Global Times, a nationalist nationalist newspaper, said in an editorial Friday that it was "widely accepted that trade negotiations would take a long time" and that there is a risk of reaching an agreement if Washington continues to put pressure on Beijing. .
Larry Kudlow, director of the US National Economic Council, told CNBC on Friday that he "was not expecting a big deal."
"Sending to our negotiators, I think they will put things back in place and hopefully get back to the point where the talks ended last May," he said, adding that both sides still had to tackle key structural issues such as intellectual property theft. and forced transfers of technology.
– New places, new faces –
In addition to a new location, the new round of trade talks seems to give a more prominent role to China's Minister of Commerce, Zhong Shan.
While Deputy Prime Minister Liu He will probably again lead the talks for China, Zhong's addition could change the tone of the talks as he is perceived as a tough guy.
"On one side, maybe in his speeches he could express something difficult," Wang said.
"But on the other hand, we can also think that China is making more efforts to reach an agreement, because Zhong Shan is a man with great expertise in this area."
It has also been suggested that Beijing deliberately delays the process until the next US election, in the hope of finding a more conciliatory leader to deal with.
It will be more difficult for Xi to push forward the reforms after the US criticism of Beijing's human rights record and an open letter signed by retired military officials urging Trump to maintain a hard line against Communist China, said Larry Ong, Senior Analyst at SinoInsider, Political Risk Consultant.
"Xi's rivals and other hard-line Party (Communist) parties will seize the above-mentioned developments to prove that the United States wants to defeat the CCP in a Cold War-type conflict, and not to achieve a win-win trade deal and bring the United States back between the two countries. relationship with the era of engagement, "said Ong.
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