Beijing — China’s commerce ministry says China has not been in touch with the US about restarting trade negotiations, and says complaints about forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft are unacceptable. Ministry spokesman Gao Feng reiterated on Thursday that China does not want a trade war, but it does not fear one and will fight if necessary. The comments, made at a regular press briefing on Thursday, came after the US issued a list of Chinese goods worth $200bn to be hit with the new tariffs. Other media had reported earlier that there were prospects of talks resuming. China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said "when we have a trade problem, we should talk about it". While that came amid fresh threats of retaliation from Beijing, it matched some willingness from the Trump team to resume talks at a high level, according to a person familiar with the US administration’s thinking.
Communications between senior members of the Trump and Xi administrati...
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