China blames US for trade frictions, says negotiations currently impossible

China stepped up its attacks on the Trump administration on Monday over billions of dollars worth of threatened tariffs, saying Washington is to blame for trade frictions and repeating it was impossible to negotiate under “current circumstances”.

The comments come after US President Donald Trump on Sunday predicted China would take down its trade barriers, and expressed optimism that both sides could resolve the issue through talks.

Chinese state researchers and media talked down the likely impact of US trade measures on the world's second largest economy and described the Trump administration's posturing on trade as the product of an “anxiety disorder”.

“Under the current circumstances, both sides even more cannot have talks on these issues,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters at a regular news briefing.

“The United States with one hand wields the threat of sanctions, and at the same time says they are willing to talk. I'm not sure who the United States is putting on this act for,” Geng said. The trade frictions were “entirely at the provocation of the United States”, he added.

Beijing did not want to fight a trade war, but was not afraid of one, Vice Commerce Minister Qian Keming said at the Boao Forum for Asia in the southern province of Hainan.

The focus this week will be on the forum, with President Xi Jinping and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde delivering speeches on Tuesday.

The US move last week to threaten China with tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods was aimed at forcing Beijing to address what Washington says is deeply entrenched theft of US intellectual property and forced technology transfer from US companies.

Beijing claims that Washington is the aggressor and is spurring global protectionism, though China's trading partners have complained for years that it abuses World Trade Organization rules and practices unfair industrial policies that lock foreign companies out of crucial sectors with the intent of creating domestic champions.

After repeated pledges by Beijing to open up sectors such as financial services have yielded little substantial progress, Trump has said that the United States will no longer let China take advantage of it on trade.

“China's reaction to Mr. Trump's legitimate defense of the American homeland has been a Great Wall of denial — despite incontrovertible evidence of Beijing's illicit and protectionist behaviors,” White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said in a commentary in the Financial Times on Monday.

“Nothing less than the US's economic future is at risk from China's assault on American technology and IP, and its mercantilist bid to capture emerging high-tech industries,” he said.

Chinese officials deny such charges, and responded within hours of Trump's announcement of tariffs with their own proposed commensurate duties. The move prompted Trump to threaten duties on an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods.

None of the measures have yet gone into effect, offering some hope for compromise and a watering down of the proposals even as both sides' rhetoric grows more strident.

China's ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said in an interview in China's Securities Daily newspaper that the United States should “adopt a more responsible attitude” on trade or it would harm itself with its own policies.

“Some people in the United States are still accustomed to being the world leader, and haven't adapted to the change in the global situation,” Cui said.