China accuses US of ‘bullying’ on trade but calls for cooperation

Beijing has accused Washington of bullying tactics and economic intimidation, while restating its own stance that only cooperation on trade issues will produce results, in the government’s most comprehensive statement of its trade war stance to date. The white paper released by the official Xinhua New Agency came after Beijing declined on Saturday the US invitation to hold talks to try to resolve the ongoing trade dispute and only an hour after the latest round of US tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese imports kicked in. The document declared that the “America first” economic policies being pursued by the US administration and punitive tariffs on Chinese products had “greatly undermined” bilateral economic ties and threatened the world’s multilateral system of trade.In keeping with its practice not to personalise the trade conflict, the white paper never mentions US President Donald Trump by name throughout the 36,000-word text.