China on Thursday said the removal of tariffs by the US on over USD 250 billion Chinese exports should be part of any trade deal between the two countries, as the world's two largest economies plan to resume talks to end the bruising trade war.
US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in Osaka in Japan on the side-lines of the G20 summit on June 29 during which they agreed to resume the negotiations to finalise a trade deal.
Beijing earlier welcomed Trump's decision not to impose tariffs on the remaining about USD 300 billion dollars of Chinese exports.
Trump, who earlier banned the use of Chinese telecom giant Huawei products in the US networks, has said that American firms could sell their products to Huawei "where there is no great national emergency problem with it".
Following the Trump-Xi meeting in Osaka, both the countries agreed to resume trade talks which broke down in May this year after the 11 rounds.
Trump kicked off a trade war last year demanding China to the reduce massive trade deficit, which climbed to over USD 539 billion.
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Trump is also insisting China to workout verifiable measures for the protection of the intellectual property rights (IPR), technology transfer and providing more access to American goods to the huge Chinese markets.
Both the countries have imposed additional tariffs on billions of dollars' worth of their exports to each other. The US has already imposed 25 per cent duties on more than USD 250 billions of imports from China.
Commenting for the first time on the resumption of the stalled trade talks, Gao Feng, spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce on Thursday, called for lifting of the existing tariffs on Chinese products by the US.
"Sino-US trade tensions resulted from the imposition of tariffs on Chinese products by Washington. If China and the US were to eventually reach a trade deal, the existing US tariffs should all be lifted, and the agreement must be mutually beneficial, bidirectional and balanced, in which China's core concerns must be met. China's attitude is specific and consistent," Gao said.
China apparently apprehend that Trump may still retain some of the tariffs on Chinese exports even after a trade deal as he said on March 21 that he wanted some tariffs to remain in place for a "substantial period of time", even extending beyond any trade deal.
Gao said the Chinese and US teams are in close contact for resuming trade talks but gave no time-frame.
"China hopes the two sides can avoid escalating trade tensions by maintaining equality and mutual respect, which is in line with the agreements reached between the two countries' leaders on the side-lines of the G20 Osaka Summit last week," Gao told reporters here.
He also urged the US to fulfil its promise that "US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei," the state-run CGTN quoted him as saying.
After a ban by Trump, Google has said it would not use its services to phones made by Huawei in future.
Google's move to curtail access to its Android operating system means that the Shenzhen-based company will no longer be able to run Google's popular apps and services such as Gmail, YouTube or its Google Play app store, on future Huawei devices.
Huawei has said it may lose about USD 30 billion revenue in the next two years as a result of US ban and Washington's campaign among allied and friendly countries on a ban on use of the products of the Chinese telecpm giant on security grounds.
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