Todd Bishop
On the occasion of China-US trade negotiations in Shanghai, the CCP held an important meeting, which showed that China’s attitude toward trade wars has changed.
China’s state news agency Xinhua News Agency reported on July 30 that the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on July 30 to analyze and study the current economic situation and deploy economic work in the second half of the year. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting.
According to the report, the meeting believes that since the beginning of this year, in the face of the complex situation of increasing risk challenges at home and abroad, all localities and departments have implemented the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee, and have made three major battles, timely and moderately implemented the macro-policy counter-cyclical adjustment, and vigorously promoted high quality. development of.
The meeting pointed out that China’s current economic development faces new risks and challenges. As China’s domestic economic downward pressure increases, it is necessary to enhance the sense of urgency, grasp the long-term general trend, seize the main contradictions, be good at turning crises into opportunities, and do well in doing things well.
The meeting called for effective response to economic and trade frictions and comprehensively fulfill the “six stable” work. Increase opening up to the outside world and step up implementation of a series of major opening initiatives.
For this meeting, the Nikkei Asia Review reported on July 31 that the meeting acknowledged that the risks facing the economy were in stark contrast to the optimistic assessment of the April meeting, which said the economy had a good start.
The report pointed out that this meeting emphasized the importance of economic management in the second half of the year and stated that it will not cool the economy on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. To this end, the Politburo has revisited “six stability.” At the 2018 meeting, the Politburo for the first time called for stability in six major areas, namely employment, finance, foreign trade, foreign investment, investment and expectations. At the Politburo meeting in April 2019, this statement was deleted because the economic growth in the first quarter was better than expected.
The report also said that the Chinese leaders’ commitment to “effectively deal with economic and trade frictions” is even stronger than the position of “handling trade frictions properly” in the December 2018 Central Economic Work Conference statement.
Reuters reported that investors are waiting to see how much stimulus China will launch when China’s economic growth slows to its lowest level in nearly 30 years.
Sources told Reuters that as the trade war with the United States continues to grow longer and more expensive, China will include all economic policy tools in the options, but once the dispute continues to deteriorate, it will be more radical interest rate cuts. Considered as the last resort.
