U.S. brinkmanship, blackmail won't work for China: MOC spokesman

Commenting on U.S. threats to impose additional tariffs on more than 500 billion dollars of imported Chinese products, a spokesman with the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday that the "typical brinkmanship and blackmail practices will not have any effect on China."

The Chinese side will "resolutely defend the country's core interests and Chinese people's interests," spokesman Gao Feng said at a press conference.

"Out of consideration for its domestic political agenda, the United States provoked and escalated trade frictions all around the world, disregarding the hard-earned sound environment for global economic recovery and the impacts on the interests of companies and consumers on the global value chain," Gao said. "These kinds of irrational words and actions are extremely irresponsible."

Since launching the Section 301 investigation against China, the U.S. side has never stopped taking measures to escalate trade frictions, but blamed China for the stalemate of bilateral negotiations, the spokesman said.

"It is self-evident who is right and who is wrong," Gao said.

The precondition of negotiations is credibility, said Gao. According to him, the two sides have not had any contact to restart negotiations.

"China has emphasized many times that we don't want a trade war but are not afraid of one, and will resolutely defend the country's core interests and Chinese people's interest," Gao said. "At the same time, we will promote economic and trade cooperation with our trade partners around the world to jointly safeguard free trade principles and multilateral trade mechanisms and push for global economic health and stability."