‘They have long benefitted from free trade…’: Chinese envoy says India, China should counter US’ ‘unfair tariffs’

The US has long benefited from free trade but is now using tariffs as a tool, said the Chinese envoy to India. The Chinese ambassador also said India and China should explore ways to counter this “threat”.

Chinese ambassador Xu Feihong at an event organised to mark the 80th anniversary of China’s victory against Japan said, "The trade war was started by the US. International trade should complement each other and lead to mutually beneficial win-win cooperation. The US has long benefited from free trade. But now it is using the tariff as a kind of weapon or a tool.”

He said the US is using tariffs as a kind of “weapon” to extract “exorbitant” costs from various countries, including India and China.

"The US is imposing tariffs of up to 50 per cent on India. It is unfair, unreasonable, China firmly opposes it," he said, also adding that the two countries should scale up cooperation in the economic and trade domain.

"We have 2.8 billion people, we have mega-size economies, mega-size markets and we have hard working people. Our economies are complementary," he said.

Xu also said that both India and China are victims of terrorism and Beijing is ready to work with the international community as well as New Delhi to combat the challenge. He added that an important consensus was reached between India and China on the boundary issue. In an apparent reference to Pakistan, Xu said the relationship between the two sides has not been impacted by a third party.

"PM Modi said that India-China cooperation will make the 21st century a genuine Asian century. Both of them stressed the importance of economic cooperation between our two sides," he said. "We share common interests in the field of counter-terrorism. China and India have maintained communications on counter-terrorism through multilateral mechanisms such as the SCO, BRICS, and the Tianjin Declaration in which the (SCO) member states condemned terrorism in all its forms," he said.

The envoy added that both the nations are at a critical stage of national development and both should devote their natural resources to national development. "We welcome more Indian companies to promote their products and invest in China, and we also hope that India could provide a fair, just, and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises," he said.