US firms attending expo shows how hard decoupling would be

THE 2ND CHINA INTERNATIONAL IMPORT EXPO will open soon, and according to the Ministry of Commerce, 192 US companies will participate in the exhibition, ranking first among participating countries. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Despite the headwinds of the trade frictions between China and the United States, the enthusiasm of US companies to attend the event shows that the deep integration between China and the United States is irreversible.

Over the 40 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the bilateral trade in goods has grown 252 times and the two countries have become each other's largest trading partner and important source of investment. Between 2009 and 2018, US exports to China supported more than 11 million jobs in the US. In 2017, US companies registered annual sales of $700 billion in China, generating a profit of more than $50 billion, and 97 percent of the surveyed US companies said they were profitable in China.

That so many US companies are participating in the expo shows that despite the uncertainties, they are still confident about the prospects of the Chinese market.

After decades of operations in the Chinese market, many US companies are deeply integrated into China's development and they are sharing China's development fruits. At the same time, China continues to take the initiative to open its market to foreign companies including US companies, adding new impetus to Sino-US cooperation.

As the world's two largest economies, cooperation between China and the US has obvious spillover effects, which is of great significance to the prosperity and steady development of the world economy. Facts have proved time and again that the essence of Sino-US economic and trade ties is mutual benefit and win-win results, and strengthening bilateral cooperation not only remains an inevitable choice based on market behavior, but is also an objective requirement for maintaining stable global economic growth.