“The Chinese government respects the wishes of companies and welcomes them to conduct commercial negotiations based on market rules and reach solutions that comply with Chinese laws and regulations and balance interests,” Xi said during the phone call, repeating a position previously articulated by the Chinese government.
Xi said that China hoped the US would provide an “open, fair, and non-discriminatory” business environment for Chinese companies to invest in the US.
He also urged the US to top taking “unilateral trade restrictive measures to prevent undermining the achievements made through multiple rounds of consultations”.
The future of TikTok has been under a cloud since last year, when Congress passed a law requiring the app’s US operations to be divested, or face a ban on national security grounds.
According to reports by The Wall Street Journal, US and Chinese officials have been discussing a divestiture of TikTok that would involve a new US entity being created to operate the app, with ByteDance’s ownership dropping below 20 per cent and new investors and existing backers controlling the other 80 per cent.
Even with Xi’s approval of TikTok’s reconfiguration, there are many other unresolved points of trade tensions that US and Chinese officials have attempted to work through over four rounds of talks in European cities between May and September.
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Key sticking points include US demands for China to do more to curb the export of fentanyl-related chemicals and a push for China to buy more US goods, particularly soybeans, to address what Trump perceives as an unfair trade deficit.
The two sides are also in fierce competition over semiconductors and AI chips, with Trump lifting an export ban on Nvidia’s H20 chip only for China to launch an anti-monopoly investigation into the US chip giant.
The trade negotiations have proceeded against the backdrop of rolling 90-day extensions to a tariff truce and a pause on some export controls. This was brokered after Trump hit Chinese imports with duties of 145 per cent, sparking retaliation from Beijing that spiralled into triple digits and an export ban on rare earths used in high-tech products from smartphones to electrical vehicles and fighter jets.
Washington, in return, blocked Beijing’s access to chip design software, jet engine parts, and imposed new student visa restrictions.
Both sides agreed to step back from the brink in May, with the US relaxing its tariff rate to 30 per cent and China adopting a 10 per cent tariff rate during the negotiations. The next 90-day deadline expires in November.
with Michael Koziol
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