The U.S. government immediately attracted global condemnation after announcing the imposition of "reciprocal tariffs" on all trading partners on April 2. On the afternoon of April 7, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference that the United States is hegemony in the name of "reciprocity", sacrificing the legitimate interests of all countries, serving its own selfishness, and putting "America first" above international rules is a typical unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying. China has issued the "Chinese Government's Position on Opposing the U.S. Abuse of Tariffs", which has shown a solemn attitude. No matter how the international situation changes, China's door to opening up will only open wider and wider.

Under the US tariff stick

How can China help foreign trade companies reduce their impact?

Zhang Monan, Deputy Director of the US-European Research Department of China Center for International Economic Exchanges: We are now facing a very severe external situation. On the one hand, as the world's largest intermediate product trading country, China has been deeply integrated into the global industrial chain and supply chain system. As an important part of the production and supply chain, enterprises will actually face direct and indirect shocks from the outside. There are many companies that are both importing resources and exporting. For such enterprises, I think China will support our intermediate product trade in the future in terms of the entire production and supply chain system to reduce the cost of intermediate product trade and solve the problems of enterprises.

On the other hand, from a medium- and long-term perspective, we must make full use of the existing multilateral and bilateral free trade systems, including some trade agreements, to improve our competitiveness and reduce trade barriers and costs. For example, the RCEP that has been promoted, relevant enterprises, including relevant government authorities, should support enterprises to make full use of the rules of origin and a series of preferential trade measures to reduce costs, eliminate the interference of current trade barriers, and promote regional economic integration. In addition, from the perspective of the government, we should also implement diversified foreign trade strategies with greater efforts, especially the construction of trade networks with greater efforts. For example, we will negotiate and sign multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements with more countries, and make full use of free trade agreements, including zero tariffs to reduce the impact of the trade war. The combination of short-term and long-term can fundamentally resolve the current conflicts and contradictions.

Under the US tariff stick

Will service trade and digital trade become a new window for China's foreign trade exports?

Zhang Monan, Deputy Director of the US-European Research Department of China International Economic Exchange Center: Judging from the development trend in recent years, service trade, especially digital trade, has become a new driving force and engine for global trade growth. For example, in the past decade, China's average service trade growth rate has reached 6%, far higher than the global level. In particular, related service industries represented by knowledge-intensive services have accounted for 40% of the overall service industry. In recent years, with the acceleration of digital transformation, China's current digital trade has also become a new growth momentum and engine. China's digital trade has almost doubled in the past five years. Now with the rapid rise of digital technology, the growth of these new digital trade has also become the driving force for overall trade, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, including digital services, online medical care, distance education, etc. Especially last year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Reform, Innovation and Development of Digital Trade", which provided corresponding fundamental guidelines and strategic guidance for us to build a digital trade power in the future. These aspects provide strategic planning for us to create a broader space for digital trade in the future.

Responding to the "tariff war" of the United States

It is fundamental to expand the domestic unified large market and strong domestic demand market

Zhang Monan, Deputy Director of the US-European Research Department of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges: In the era of global trade protectionism and de-globalization, the market is the scariest resource, while an open market is even scarce. The reason why the United States can wield the tariff stick is precisely because it takes advantage of the scale and attractiveness of its local market to make other countries at a disadvantage in investment and trade with the United States. For China, cultivating our unified market and a stronger growth domestic demand market in the future is the foundation for us to deal with tariff wars and trade protection. Especially in recent years, we have been actively promoting the construction of a unified large market. I think we should promote construction more in these aspects, so that our domestic demand and market resources can be revitalized, and we can also attract higher-end factors and resources from the world through the construction of a unified large market.

Responding to the US "tariff war"

What role can my country play in adhering to high-level opening up to the outside world and expanding domestic demand?

Zhang Monan, Deputy Director of the US-European Research Department of China Center for International Economic Exchanges: In fact, the global economy is a whole, and China's domestic demand is also the foreign demand of other countries. Through us, China has promoted a strong domestic demand market and domestic demand strategy, which has actually provided more stable growth momentum and source for the global economy. In the past two years, China has been actively promoting the strategy of expanding domestic demand, which has also served as an important pillar and key momentum for us to build a new development pattern. On the other hand, we are also promoting high-level institutional opening up, which is actually very attractive to attracting foreign investment and attracting high-end factors and resources from all over the world.

In the future, I think China should promote a new round of high-level opening up around market access and other aspects, which can make China's business environment more attractive to other countries and a good external environment in the future. In addition, I think from China's perspective, opening up itself is also reform, and reform is also opening up. So how can we increase our structural reform in the process of promoting overall high-level opening up in the future? I think it will also play a more critical role in improving the quality and momentum of economic growth.