Washington gives just stems of thorns rather than flowers

Editor's note: Despite its repeated claim that the United States seeks to build relationships featuring reciprocity and respect for sovereignty based on fairness, in reality, Washington always pursues the goal of benefiting the US while harming other countries. Zhong Sheng, a columnist for People's Daily, comments:

If Washington truly pursues reciprocity, why does it impose tariffs on other countries and unabashedly brag about the tens of billions of dollars in revenue that the tariffs will generate for the US while gloating in the misery they cause its trade partners.

As the main founder and long-term leader of the multilateral trading system, the US used to take the lead in trade liberalization and investment facilitation. By virtue of its advantages in technology, capital and rules, the US established a global value chain dominated by transnational corporations and gained huge benefits in the global market, especially the Chinese market. According to official statistics of the US, from 2009 to 2016, the investment stock of US multinationals in China increased by 111.4 percent, while sales increased by 140.3 percent and net income by 151.3 percent. This demonstrates the US has not suffered from the global value chain, but gained from it.

However, the US is reluctant to see other countries perform well. In order to maintain its leading position and ensure its dominance, the US even mobilizes administrative power to suppress other countries' technology enterprises under various "unwarranted" charges, so as to win space and time for US enterprises to seize the market in the high-tech field and maintain their monopolistic position in the international industrial division of labor.

Top US officials have even been lobbying governments around the world to refuse to cooperate with Huawei on the grounds of "endangering national security". Not only Chinese companies, all competitors in the eyes of US politicians are a "thorn in the flesh".

Some US politicians are eager to perpetuate a development model in which developing countries export low-value resources, goods and services to the US, while the US exports dollars, financial products and low-end technologies to the rest of the world. In today's interdependent global village, joint development remains a general trend. The act of "withholding from others rose blooms and giving them thorns" is bound to be spurned by more people.