China welcomes politicians, business leaders for high-profile meetings despite tariff threat
With several high-level meetings in China recently, Beijing has welcomed a large wave of politicians, businesspeople, and scholars from the United States in the lead-up to a series of talks with senior Chinese leaders and officials, although Washington is resorting to more tariffs.
Amid the frequent China-US interactions this spring, strong signals and willingness have come from both sides to stabilize the general setting of bilateral cooperation.
US President Donald Trump on March 26 announced plans to impose 25-percent auto tariffs, with the measures set to take effect on April 2.
“What we’re going to be doing is a 25-percent tariff for all cars that are not made in the United States,” Trump said in the White House Oval Office. “We start off with a 2.5-percent base, which is what we’re at, and go to 25 percent.”
“We start collecting on April 3,” Trump was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
Trump argued that the tariffs would encourage more production to relocate to the US, generate new revenue for the government, and help reduce the national debt.
However, economists have warned that tariffs would push up car prices and hurt consumers, who already face elevated prices.
In Beijing in recent days, prominent figures such as Premier Li Qiang and Vice-Premier He Lifeng, as well as Liu Jianchao, minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and Wang Wentao, minister of commerce, have held separate meetings with US guests from various sectors.
Analysts said the current high frequency of meetings is aimed at keeping the communication afloat, given the recent trade wars waged by Washington globally and the threatened additional tariffs.
The analysts said the US side should move toward the same goal as China, and the two countries should make the pie of their pragmatic cooperation even bigger despite rising difficulties in bilateral ties.
On March 26 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, senior diplomat Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, met with Evan Greenberg, executive vice-chair of the National Committee on US-China Relations.
Wang, who is also foreign minister, defined current China-US relations as being “at a critical juncture regarding the direction to be taken”. He said that “the two sides should follow the key consensus and vision of the two heads of state, strengthen exchanges, enhance understanding, avoid miscalculation and manage differences”.
China is willing to “engage in dialogue and consultation with the US side and address the legitimate concerns of each side based on the principle of equality and the spirit of mutual respect”, Wang added.
Greenberg said, “China needs peace and prosperity, America needs peace and prosperity, and we need to be able to pursue our visions of greatness, each of us in harmony with the other.”
On March 23, Premier Li met with US Senator Steve Daines and a group of US corporate executives in Beijing to attend the China Development Forum 2025. Li stressed that “there are no winners in trade wars”.
Daines, a Republican from Montana, is the first member of the US Congress to visit China since Trump took office in January.
In a separate meeting with Daines on March 22, Vice-Premier He said that China firmly opposes the approach of politicizing or weaponizing economic and trade issues.
The two countries “have many common interests and broad space for cooperation”, he said.
Annual bilateral trade between China and the US exceeded $680 billion last year, and about 73,000 US companies are currently investing and operating in China.
Jake Werner, director of the East Asia program at the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said, “I hope that we can deepen our friendship, increase the number of exchanges, so we can better understand each other, and that we do this in order to confront our problems.”
Yu Yunquan, vice-president of China International Communications Group and president of the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies, noted that the new US administration had undertaken many new policies and that “uncertainties in China-US relations have increased”.
He noted that the future of Sino-US relations is being closely watched by the international community.
Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, during his meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook in Beijing on March 24, said China stands ready to work with the US to create a more stable policy environment for businesses through equal dialogue. He said their talks were “in-depth and pragmatic”.
John Quelch, executive vice-chancellor and American president of Duke Kunshan University, welcomed the “very clear statement” of fiscal and monetary policy made by senior Chinese officials at the China Development Forum.
“China, with 1.4 billion people, is exceptional and important to the global economy,” he added.
