China issued a report blaming the United States for a trade dispute and says it won’t back down on “major issues of principle.” (Andy Wong/Associated Press)BEIJING — China issued a report Sunday blaming the United States for the countries’ trade dispute and said it won’t back down on “major issues of principle,” but offered no clarification about what additional steps it might take to up the ante. The U.S. has accused China of stealing trade secrets and forced technology transfers. Wang said China had been forced to “take forceful measures in response” to U.S. actions and denied China had backtracked on its earlier commitments. Trump has touted the tariff increases as a way of reducing China’s trade surplus with the U.S., which hit a staggering $379 billion last year. Subtracting the U.S. surplus in the services trade with China, the actual surplus came to just $152.6 billion last year, Wang said.

Source: Washington Post June 02, 2019 05:03 UTC