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The United States refuses to resume trade talks with China until Beijing has made a concrete proposal to address Washington's complaints about forced technology transfers and other economic problems, officials said. sides of the Pacific.
The stalemate threatens to compromise a meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi Jinpings scheduled for late November at the summit of the Group of 20 leaders in Buenos Aires. Both parties had hoped that this meeting would ease trade tensions. US companies are counting on sufficient progress at the meeting for the Trump administration to suspend its plan to increase tariffs on Chinese imports by $ 200 billion, bringing it to 10 percent from now to 25 percent. January 1st. Such a move would be a blow to US importers and consumers.
Negotiations have been suspended since mid-September, when the Chinese canceled their trip to Washington after the United States announced that it was taking $ 200 billion worth of Chinese imports. Since then, Beijing has been trying to renew dialogue, including asking US Under Secretary of the Treasury David Malpass to resume talks. He refused – with the support of the White House commercial team – until the Chinese presented a formal offer, US officials said.
"If China wants [the G-20 session] to be a meaningful meeting, we need to do the basic work, "said a senior White House official. "And if they do not give us any information, it's hard to see how it becomes fruitful."
For Beijing, making a formal offer presents a number of risks, according to people informed by the Chinese. First, it would reveal their bargaining position. Secondly, Beijing fears that Trump will make an offer public in a tweet or statement to block any concessions from China.
There is a story behind Beijing's concerns. During negotiations on China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 1999, President Clinton rejected an offer by Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji at the time, which called for deep concessions and restructuring. Chinese economy. The Clinton administration released Mr. Zhu's offer, hoping to prevent the Chinese from regressing. Instead, Mr. Zhu was pilloried at home by uncompromising people, and it took months of negotiations to finally convince China to agree to a deal similar to the one she had originally proposed. .
China's ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, said Beijing wanted more discussions before presenting a specific offer. "People have to sit together," Cui said in an interview. "Then each party should make their own proposal."
He added that Beijing was wary of negotiations with the Trump government, as Trump had rejected several earlier offers after other US negotiators said they would be accepted. "You can not have an agreement in principle someday and reject it the next day," he said.
The United States, for its part, is worried that China will start negotiations and try to get pledges from Mr. Trump during a one-on-one session with Xi. This would result in agreements "that engage in areas that sound good but do not make sense," said a senior White House official, adding that Mr. Trump would not fall into a such a trap. The Chinese are known for their meticulous preparation of meetings, while Mr. Trump often trusts his instincts.
Since the spring, both sides have been discussing the possibility of reaching an agreement. During the May negotiations in Beijing, US negotiators submitted to their Chinese counterparts a list of eight-point demands, ranging from halving the $ 376 billion trade deficit to cutting most of the subsidies provided by China to high technology industries.
The Chinese divided the US demands into 142 separate points, which they then classified into three categories, informed people informed of China's talks. 30% to 40% of requests could be made immediately; An additional 30% to 40% could be negotiated over time; and 20% were banned because they related to national security or other sensitive issues, they said. Called unofficially "80/20 plan" or "60/20/20 plan", the idea was presented to the United States during the mid-August negotiations, US and Chinese officials said.
The Chinese negotiators, however, did not reveal the elements of each of the three categories, apart from 122 out of 142 points considered as negotiable, and they did not specify how the individual elements would be treated. The proposal was more of a "conceptual" one, US officials said, saying it was not enough. They want a detailed, concrete offer that responds to the concerns of the United States.
"Show us your list," said the senior White House official, otherwise no negotiations would take place before the G-20.
Beijing retorts that the US calendar is reversed and that an offer should follow the talks. "We do not know if the United States is really serious about all these so-called structural issues, because there is no meeting," Ambassador Cui said.
Which led to the current stalemate. Every negotiation has to face many obstacles. For example, the United States is seeking ways to implement any agreement that may include maintaining certain tariffs until China fulfills its commitments. Otherwise, the US could impose more tariffs if China does not respect the rules.
"We have to find a way to trust, but to check," said the top US official at the White House, "and to ensure that we do not give up all our weight at the end of the meeting. "
Beijing is also seeking to show that it is taking serious complaints about its trade policy and is organizing a major import promotion fair next month in Shanghai. More than two dozen major US companies rented premises, but the US embassy in Beijing said no high-profile US government promotion plans were planned.
In private, US officials said the trade show exposed China's coercive practices. They say that Chinese officials have warned the leaders of several large companies that their activities could suffer if they did not participate in this event. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected this claim, calling it an "unfounded accusation".
-James T. Areddy in Shanghai contributed to this article.
Write to Bob Davis at [email protected] and Lingling Wei at [email protected]
