Accusations of China evading its obligations .. and"Chinese aggression" At the quartet’s table

China (news now) – 11/02/2022. 18:13

New criticism of China… and Blinken in Asia to support allies

• Beijing hasn’t bought enough US goods since a trade deal with the US in 2020
• US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said confrontation with China is not inevitable

International criticism of China is increasing in many files, the latest of which is the American one, to go beyond description and become accusations of evading commitments and covenants, as a study conducted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics says that Beijing has not bought enough American goods since the conclusion of a trade agreement with the United States in 2020. , calling for the punitive fees to be raised “as soon as possible.”

The institute published a series of figures midweek questioning the commitment made by China more than two years ago, before the start of the Covid-19 epidemic.

In January 2020, the two countries concluded a truce in the trade war launched by former US President Donald Trump, after imposing reciprocal customs duties on goods worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and the truce at that time stipulated the implementation of the “first phase” of the concluded trade agreement.

China pledged to buy additional US products worth $200 billion over two years in order to reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries, but figures from the US Department of Commerce show that the US trade deficit with China reached $34.1 billion in December 2021.

According to the study, China bought only about 57 percent of the American goods and services that it committed to buying, accusing… Beijing It has “never worked at a pace that would enable it to meet its purchasing obligations”.

Sino-US relations witnessed a marked deterioration under Donald Trump, as the former US president demanded that China reduce the trade imbalance and stop its “unfair” trade practices such as the “forced” transfer of technology and its support for state-owned companies.

On the other hand, US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said that confrontation with China is not inevitable, but that Washington must stand with its allies for a rules-based order threatened by Chinese aggression.
“I think the concerns about China have in recent years been acting more aggressively at home and more aggressively in the region and perhaps already outside,” the Associated Press quoted Blinken as saying.

Blinken’s comments came shortly before he met the foreign ministers of Australia, India and Japan, where the four countries form the so-called “Quad” (Quartet), an alliance of Indo-Pacific democracies created to counter China’s regional influence.

Blinken noted that the Quartet are united by a “positive vision of what the future can achieve.”

Blinken’s trip aims to advance US interests in Asia and its determination to counter China’s growing ambitions in the region. He will also visit Fiji and discuss pressing concerns about North Korea with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Hawaii.