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BEIJING — A Chinese government spokesman denied that recently announced policy changes constitute concessions to the Trump administration in the countries’ trade fight.
A Commerce Ministry spokesman said Thursday that the new measures announced by President Xi Jinping “have nothing to do with the trade disputes with the U.S.” The spokesman, Gao Feng, told reporters that the Chinese government is opening the economy “at its own pace, in its own direction, which is already fixed.”
At a forum of political and business leaders on Tuesday, President Xi offered to further open China’s markets to foreign business, increase imports, accelerate access to China’s insurance and other financial sectors, raise protections for intellectual property, and lower tariffs and reduce ownership restrictions for foreign car makers.
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Global financial markets, which have been rocky in recent weeks as the U.S. and China threatened tariffs on each other’s goods, were cheered by Xi’s remarks, seeing them as a sign both governments would negotiate their way out of the dispute. President Donald Trump liked them, too, thanking Xi on Twitter and saying, “We will make great progress together.”
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— An expanded version of this report can be found at WSJ.com
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