China Review News (CRN) recently reported that the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury David Malpass commented in a press interview on the status of the US-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue (CED). Malpass stated that the CED is stalled and it does not appear that there are any plans for a resumption. Since China “has not taken the path towards a market-oriented economy,” there has not been any on-going discussion or communication on potentially restarting a similar dialog. The original idea of having the CED was to focus on the issues between China and the United States in terms of trade and investments. The U.S. had a trade deficit with China at the level of US$274 billion in the first nine months of this year. More and more officials in the Trump administration have doubted the usefulness of having the CED with China, especially when China’s state-owned enterprises are obtaining more controlling power in the Chinese economy. Very recently, the United States started an anti-dumping investigation against China’s aluminum sheet exports to the U.S. This is in addition to the global steel overcapacity debate, as well as the U.S. position against China’s Market Economy Status under the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework.
Source: China Review News, December 1, 2017
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