China fires back at G7 allegations of market-distorting practices

The Mainichi

5 hours ago

BEIJING (Kyodo) -- China on Tuesday pushed back against accusations from the Group of Seven major democracies that it distorts markets, dismissing the claim as one that "disregards objective facts" while shifting blame to the United States and its punitive tariff regime.
The Chinese Embassy in Canada insisted the G7 chair's summary, released by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, "attacks and smears" Beijing and interferes in its internal affairs, expressing firm opposition to it.
Carney said in the summary the G7 leaders called on China to "refrain from market distortions and harmful overcapacity." The group launched an action plan aimed at reducing risks to critical mineral supply chains, often resulting from overdependence on China, at their annual summit in Canada.
"The truly harmful market-distorting practices that do the biggest damage to the multilateral trading regime are the practices of imposing unjustified tariffs, threatening with unilateral trade bullying, and politicizing and weaponizing economic and trade issues," the Chinese embassy said.
China urged the G7 countries of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States to "stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs, stop harming other countries' development, stop manipulating issues on China, and do more that is conducive to international solidarity and cooperation."
China and the United States have been engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war, with recent bilateral trade tensions stemming from Beijing's allegedly slow removal of export controls on rare earths used in high-tech products.
China mines about 70 percent of the world's rare earths used in the production of smartphones, personal computers and vehicles.