In the trade dispute of the US with the rest of the world, China expresses its harshest warning so far: if America introduces tariffs on imported Chinese goods, it will give the "necessary and lawful answer".

After the US government apparently announced on Tuesday that they might soon impose punitive tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports, Beijing hits back two days later - more clearly than ever before in the dispute.

If Washington in any way starts a trade war, China will give the "necessary and legitimate response," Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a press conference during the People's Congress in Beijing. China's pseudo-parliamentary assembly has been meeting since Monday and is expected to approve a constitutional amendment over the weekend, after which China's president Xi Jinping may remain in office until the end of his life.

Foreign Minister Wang said a trade war would be a pity for all parties involved. He called on Washington to resolve the dispute by mutual agreement. "A trade war has never been the way to solve problems, especially in times of globalization," Wang said.

In addition to punitive tariffs, Washington could limit investment by Chinese companies in America far more than before. It could be above all about technology providers which the American government believes could threaten the supremacy of Silicon Valley. Washington has already made the expansion of the Chinese network supplier Huawei from Shenzhen in the United States very difficult. For the distribution of his smartphones Huawei has still found no partner in America despite repeated attempts.

Meanwhile, it has also become known that last week, Washington displeased the top economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Harvard alumnus Liu He, when he was in the United States to reach an agreement in the commercial dispute. The originally planned delegation of 40 Chinese politicians and government officials, who were to be send from Beijing to America, was reduced to 10 people under pressure from Washington, according to reports of the Hong Kong newspaper "South China Morning Post".

Obviously, the emissary of Xi Jinping did not get an appointment with President Donald Trump. Instead, he met Trump's business advisor Gary Cohn - who resigned from his post a few days later because he no longer wanted to support the trade war of his supervisor Trump.

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Source: dpa, Reuters
Image: pixabay

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