China’s “huge” trade imbalance with the United States is a structural and long-term problem and should be viewed with rationality, the Chinese central bank governor was quoted as saying by financial magazine Caixin.
Yi Gang, appointed to head the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in March, also called for concerted efforts from the United States and China to resolve the trade dispute, Caixin said in a report published late on Friday.
The comments came after an inconclusive two-day meeting between Chinese and U.S. top level officials in Beijing amid escalating tit-for-tat tariff threats between the world’s two biggest economies. Washington demanded that China reduce its trade surplus with the United States by at least $200 billion by the end of 2020, according to sources.
China had a record U.S. goods trade surplus of $375 billion in 2017.