US, China should address trade gap, humanity’s shared challenges like coronavirus and climate change, former trade envoy Long Yongtu says

The world’s two biggest trading nations ought to resume regular dialogue at strategic and operational levels to prevent disputes from spiralling out of control, avoiding the kind of quarrel that led to the ruinous two-year-long US-China trade war, China’s former top trade envoy has said.

The United States and China should relaunch their biannual strategic and economic dialogues (SEDs) when president-elect Joe Biden takes office in January to discuss five issues: their trade gap, protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), end of discriminatory policies against specific companies, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, said former trade vice-minister Long Yongtu.

“For the next year, I believe that [US-China] relations will be difficult because many of the fundamental issues are still unresolved,” Long said in a recorded speech for the China Conference: United States webinar organised by South China Morning Post.

“I do believe that if this kind of dialogue, including some other mechanisms, could be resumed, it would already be half [way] to repair the US-China relationship.”

The comments by Long, the eminence grise of China’s trade diplomacy and formerly the public face of the nation’s 15-year journey to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), reflects the keen interest among Chinese policymakers to return bilateral relations to a “healthy and stable” track.