The New York Times article October 11th, the original question: why do we worry about the Sino US trade war? The 18 month trade war between China and the United States is the biggest threat to global economic growth today. If the trade frictions between the two countries can not be ended in a mutually satisfactory way before the end of this year, the risk of an overall recession in the US, Europe, Japan and other developed and emerging economies will increase significantly next year.
Because of this, as 10 former heads of government and heads of state, who have maintained close ties with China and the United States in different historical periods, we have jointly written this article and called on the two sides to reach a substantive bilateral trade agreement by the end of this year. We want to say that it is time to understand the source of uncertainty in the future of the global economy.
The economic prosperity of China and the United States is based on the global free trade. Since the birth of the United States, China has benefited greatly from the birth of China. With the implementation of reform and opening up 40 years ago, China has benefited from the global market. Of course, the vast majority of the world's people, including the Chinese and American peoples, enjoy most of their economic prosperity and good life, largely due to the free trade goods and services around the world.
However, what we are seeing now is that global trade growth has lagged behind global economic growth for the first time in decades. On the one hand, this is the result of the escalation of trade frictions between the world's first and second largest economies. On the other hand, the rise of trade protectionism is on the global scale.
As a country that has maintained long-term economic relations with China, we recognize that some of the trade and economic measures adopted by Beijing stem from their practical difficulties. At the same time, we also believe that as a long-term commitment to the principle of free trade, the United States launched the first and expanding tariff war is not an effective way to solve international economic and trade frictions. Fundamentally speaking, tariff is the enemy of free trade.
In addition to its direct impact on the economy, this tariff war has also led to the uncertainty of global economic development, which has weakened the confidence of international investors to a certain extent, exacerbated the downward pressure and recession risk of economic growth. In view of this, we believe that although the WTO has limitations, it is still the best platform and channel to solve Sino US trade related issues. We also believe that WTO is the best choice to resolve trade disputes. Therefore, we call on China, the United States and other member states of the WTO to make joint efforts to strengthen WTO's ability to resolve trade disputes.
Our group of heads of state and heads of state of the former world also includes former French Prime Minister Franzo, Fillon, former Canadian chief Joe Clark, former Prime Minister Enrique Laeta of Italy, former Prime Minister Jan Peter balnnde of Holland, former president Felipe Calderon, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, and former Prime Minister of Korea.
Apart from trade, we are anxious about the broader strategic impact of Sino US economic and trade frictions which may lead to further decoupling between the two economies, especially in the field of technology and finance. The prosperity and stability of the current world largely depends on the links between the two big powers, and the integration of the two countries' markets with other parts of the world. This "decoupling" will pose a long-term threat to global peace and security.
(author: former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of Sweden, Karl Birte, etc.)
