Posted on 05/18/2018 6:19:43 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Continuing China-US talks on trade, economic issues called constructive
The Foreign Ministry dismissed a rumor on Friday that China had offered to cut its trade surplus with the United States by $200 billion, saying the trade talks with the United States have so far been constructive and are still underway.
Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the goal of the ongoing consultations between the two countries is to understand both sides' concerns, and the talks are being carried out with mutual understanding and accommodation to move the bilateral economic and trade relationship in a win-win direction.
Vice-Premier Liu He is leading a delegation for a new round of trade talks with the US in Washington. US President Donald Trump met with Liu in the White House Oval Office on Thursday, exchanging views on bilateral economic and trade relations.
Liu, as a special envoy of President Xi Jinping, extended warm greetings from Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to Trump and his wife, Melania.
Trump expressed his thanks for the greetings and asked Liu to convey greetings from him and his wife to Xi and Peng.
Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, told Trump that China-US relations have achieved important and positive progress under the guidance of the two heads of state.
He said bilateral relations are now at an important stage and both sides should implement the important consensus reached by the two leaders, meet each other halfway, respect each other and make concerted efforts to promote a healthy and stable bilateral relationship.
Trump said he highly values the good working relationship and personal friendship with President Xi and is willing to continue to maintain close contact with Xi to push forward US-China relations.
During the meeting, Trump and Liu engaged in an in-depth exchange of views on bilateral economic and trade relations. Liu said his visit this time was to follow up on the consensus reached by the two heads of state and to continue deepening the exchange with the US on bilateral economic and trade issues.
Liu said China is willing to work with the US to properly handle and resolve bilateral economic and trade issues based on the principle of mutual respect and mutual benefit, and to ensure that bilateral economic and trade cooperation continues to be the ballast and booster of China-US relations.
Trump said it's very important for the US and China to maintain a good cooperative relationship in the economic and trade fields. He said both the US and China have good economic momentum and enormous market potential, adding that there is a huge space for economic and trade cooperation.
The US president also said he hopes the two economic teams will work together to actively resolve economic and trade issues. He said the two countries should strengthen trade and investment cooperation in energy and manufacturing, expand agricultural trade and market access and bolster cooperation in protecting intellectual property rights to bring more practical benefits to the two peoples.
US Vice-President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and several other US officials also attended the meeting.
Trump needs to understand that as good as he is at negotiating, the Chinese are just as good if not better. He needs to definitely PLAY HARDBALL with the Chinese or America will, once again, get the short end of the stick.
What’s a million Chinese?
We have been being walked, by the Chinese.
They are COMPLETELY using us.
Xi or anyone. Trump needs to push. Hard.
American is really, getting used. Badly.
One hopes Trump has surrounded himself with people who understand the chicoms, realizing that economic and military objectives are intertwined.
An excellent background on Beijing’s true motives can be obtained by reading the testimony of retired naval captain James Farnell’s Thursday testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. An excerpt, with link at the end:
...If one has not read Xi Jinping’s words and realized the supremacist nature of the “China Dream” and carefully watched the nature of China’s “rise”, then one might innocently ask the obvious question: “Why does it matter that the PRC seeks regional, or even global hegemony?”
That is, why can’t the world simply abide a “rising China”, a seemingly benign term so often employed by Beijing’s propaganda organs and PRC supporters worldwide.
After all, fewer would be concerned if, say, a “rising Brazil” or a “rising India” sought regional hegemony and proclaimed a desire to “lead the world into the 21st Century”.The answer goes to the heart of the nature of China’s leadership, and what it does.
Under the CCP, the PRC is an expansionist, coercive, hyper
-nationalistic, military and economically powerful, brutally repressive, totalitarian state.
The world has seen what happens when expansionist totalitarian regimes such as this are left unchallenged and unchecked. In a world of this type of hegemon, people
are subjects—simply property—of the state, and ideals such as democracy, inalienable rights, limited government, and rule of law have no place.
Clear empirical indicators directly contradict the oft
-quoted pledge by China’s leaders of their commitment to pursue a “peaceful rise”, one in “harmony” with the rest of
Asia and the world. By its expansionist actions and words, China has challenged the post-WW II norms of international behavior and, most importantly, the peace and stability the Indo-Pacific region has enjoyed over the past 70 years.
For instance, in spite of having a GDP per capita on a par with the Dominican Republic, China’s leadership has invested staggering amounts of national treasure in a world-leading complex of ballistic missiles, satellites, and fiber
-linked command centers with little utility but to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers on demand. With China’s children kept indoors because of hazardous levels of pollution, a health care system in crisis, toxic rivers, a demographic time bomb caused by government-directed population expansion and then forced contraction, and only one third the GDP per capita of the United States, Beijing chooses to spend its precious resources on better ways to kill Americans and her allies.
Much of that investment has gone into the PLA Navy. The momentum created by the PLA Navy’s rapid advances in the maritime domain threatens to do for the rest of the
world what the Communist Party has done for China and the neighbors it has conquered, like Xinjiang and Tibet, or politically and economically dominates like Cambodia or Laos, as the PRC pursues what President Xi calls his“China Dream”.
The PLA Navy is China’s point of the spear in its quest for global hegemony. As I speak to you today, the PLA Navy consists of over 330 surface ships and 66 submarines, nearly 400 combatants. As of 4 May 2018, the U.S. Navy consists of 283 battle force ships: 211 surface ships and 72 submarines
By 2030, it is estimated the PLA Navy will consist of some 550 ships: 450 surface ships and 99
submarines.
As currently debated in the halls of the Congress and Pentagon, it remains unclear if the U.S. Navy of 2030 will even reach a total of 355 ships and submarines. Numbers matter. In the past, it was fair to say that numbers of hulls, or even tonnage, wasn’t a complete measure of force-on-force capabilities, and that American technology would outweigh the PLAN’s numbers.Today, it is no longer
credible to make that argument. From a technological standpoint, the PRC has quickly achieved parity with U.S. Navy standards and capacities for warship and
submarine production. PLA Navy ships and submarines do not have to match U.S. naval capabilities precisely: they just have to be good enough to be able to achieve
more hits to win any given battle.
Link: https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/james_e._fanell_hpsci_testimony_-_final_-_17may18.pdf
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