Rhetoric of trade war ratchets up as Beijing reacts to US claims to be ‘a manipulator of currency’ causing global order to collapse
China reinforced Tuesday’s trade war speech, accusing the US of “intentionally damaging global order” with “unilateralism and protectionism.”
A day after Washington labeled China as a monetary manipulator in a fast-growing trade conflict, China’s main bank said it “profoundly regretted” the US act and said such behavior “severely undermined international laws” and harmed the worldwide economy.
China accused the US of “intentionally breaking the global order” and keeping its own people hostage in a heavily written article in the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s formal journal.
Without citing the allegations of currency manipulation made by Donald Trump or Washington, it said: “Today some in America are obsessed with American privilege to the extent of ruining international rules and the global scheme… These Americans need to wake up!”Big nations have a duty to ensure stability and certainty for the globe while generating circumstances and possibilities for the common growth of all nations,” the journal said.
“But some individuals do the reverse in the U.S.,” he said.
The US labeled China a monetary manipulator on Monday, in a move that is already boiling strained relationships.
Secretary of the US Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, accused China of “manipulating its currency to obtain unfair competitive advantage in international trade.” The US will now call on the International Monetary
Fund to “remove the unfair competitive advantage generated by the recent deeds of China.”
It is the first such step since 1994 and occurred as global stock markets collapsed in fear of escalation in the simmering dispute between the two superpowers of trading. After comparable drops in Asia and Europe, the Dow Jones index dropped nearly 3 percent on Monday.
Asian economies dropped on Tuesday. By the center of Australia’s trading day, the ASX200 had dropped by 2%, the Hang Seng had dropped by 0.7%, and the Nikkei by 0.7%.
The decision to appoint China as a currency manipulator fulfills Donald Trump’s presidential campaign commitment: “China intends to continue to obtain the hundreds of billions of dollars with unfair trade practices and currency manipulation that they have been carrying from the US. So unilaterally, it was supposed to be halted many years earlier! He’s been writing on Twitter.
