Beijing (AFP) – A top Chinese official has vowed to protect US firms and pledged his country will remain a “promising land” for foreign investment, Beijing said Monday, after it slapped 34 percent tariffs on US imports.
China retaliated last week against levies at the same level announced by US President Donald Trump on what he called “Liberation Day”.
Beijing also imposed export controls on seven rare earth elements, including gadolinium – commonly used in magnetic resonance imaging – and yttrium, which is used in consumer electronics.
Vice commerce minister Ling Ji told a panel of US company representatives on Sunday that the tariffs “firmly protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, including American companies”, his ministry said.
Those levies – which come into effect on Thursday – “are aimed at bringing the United States back onto the right track of the multilateral trade system”, he told the representatives, including of GE Healthcare and Medtronic.
Also present was a representative of electric vehicle firm Tesla, run by close Trump advisor and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has extensive business interests in China.
“The root cause of the tariff issue lies in the United States,” Ling said.
He urged the firms to “take pragmatic actions to jointly maintain the stability of global supply chains and promote mutual cooperation and win-win outcomes”.
The United States exported $144.6 billion in goods to China in 2024, much less than the $439.7 billion it imported, Commerce Department data shows.
Among its exports, key sectors include electrical and electronic equipment and various fuels, alongside oilseed and grains.
Beijing’s foreign ministry on Monday condemned what it called “typical unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying” by Washington.
“The US is seeking hegemony in the name of reciprocity, sacrificing the legitimate interests of all countries to serve its own selfish interests, and prioritising the US over international rules,” spokesman Lin Jian said.
Trading floors were overcome by a wave of selling on Monday, in response to the showdown.
The selling in Asia was across the board, with no sector unharmed – tech firms, car makers, banks, casinos and energy firms all felt the pain as investors abandoned riskier assets.
Among the biggest losers, Chinese e-commerce titans Alibaba tanked more than 14 percent and rival JD.com shed 13 percent, while Japanese tech investment giant SoftBank dived more than 10 percent and Sony gave up 9.6 percent.
11111one11111@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Lol I mean all tariff shit aside, isn’t China still on the brink of a major real estate collapse? Last I heard they have entire ghost towns built with noone living in them. Who in their right mind is trying to invest in Chinese realestate?
stink@lemmygrad.ml 4 hours ago
Real estate is not seen as an investment in China like it is in the west.
I remember being taught in the first grade that Food, Water, and Shelter were all necessities for survival. Needs, like housing, being seen as speculative assets is why the EU and USA are having their current housing crisis.
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
That is not really the case. China used the real estate market to boost GDP grow on paper (it did have real grow it was just highly inflated) by forcing local governments to borrow unrealistic amounts of money via special bonds and now the whole market is stagnant as they can no longer keep up with that debt.
And Chinease citizens did see it as worthy investment, but after the crash they got burned and now are not investing at all which just deepens the issue.
shani66@ani.social 10 hours ago
You say that like it’s a bad thing? Realestate investment is objectively bad for a country
freagle@lemmygrad.ml 10 hours ago
You know how you avoid scarcity of housing? You build a surplus. Let’s say China has 1Bm people, what’s 1% of that? 10M. So if they built 10M vacant dwellings, they would have a 1% surplus. That’s a very small amount of surplus in the grand scheme of things especially considering the uneven distribution of populations, cultures, jobs, etc.
So in the USA, where they have more vacant dwellings than homeless people, they keep those dwellings off the market and make sure prices stay high and build new dwellings primarily at the upper end of the economic strata. Meanwhile in China there’s little to no homelessness.
So no. There is no real estate crisis in China because you are defining a real estate crisis as speculators who locked up their money in housing investments losing their profits. China defines a real estate crisis as people living in tent cities under highways in major cities with a huge amount of money.
Real estate in China isn’t how Chinese people retire. It isn’t how the petite bourgeoisie scheme to extract rent for the least amount of effort possible. Real estate in China is about housing people.