Call to revoke PNTR status will derail Sino-US trade: China Daily editorial

Despite trade being the ballast for China-US relations and concerning the well-being of people in both countries, some China hawks in Washington are threatening to derail this mutually beneficial relationship in the name of countering what they claim are the country's "unfair trade behaviors", targeting the permanent normal trade relations status it has with the United States.

In its annual report to Congress released on Tuesday, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission recommended, for the first time, repealing permanent normal trade relations with China.

The PNTR status "allows China to benefit from the same trade terms as US allies, despite engaging in practices such as intellectual property theft and market manipulation", the bipartisan group said, adding that revoking the status "would signal a shift toward a more assertive trade policy aimed at protecting US industries and workers from economic coercion".

Such claims should come as no surprise given the composition of the commission, which has a distinctly prejudicial makeup, with its chair having worked for previous Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell in a variety of positions, and its vice-chair the former director of outreach and senior adviser to former speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Neither Pelosi nor McConnell is known for their friendliness toward China. The other members of the commission include Aaron Friedberg, author of Getting China Wrong, which argues that West's engagement with China has failed because Beijing won't kowtow to Washington, and Cliff Sims, who boasts of playing an integral role in shifting the US intelligence community's funding and focus toward the threat of a "rising and adversarial China".

The other members share views and backgrounds that are similarly prejudicial toward China.

In fact, although the tariffs and restrictive policy measures, such as revoking the PNTR status for China, would come with huge costs in terms of lost US jobs and output, there is no one on the commission who might speak out against its inherently biased perspective. No one to point out that according to a report prepared for the US-China Business Council last year by Oxford Economics, a major independent economic advisory company, tariff hikes following a repeal of China's PNTR status would cost the US up to 744,000 jobs by 2025 and $1.6 trillion in GDP by 2028.

Any attempts aimed at ending China's PNTR status would violate World Trade Organization rules as the PNTR status is an obligation of its members to guarantee normal, nondiscriminatory trade relations among them.

A stable and sound economic and trade relationship between China and the US serves the best interests of not only the world's top two economies, but also the rest of the world. Ending China's PNTR status would not only undermine the common interests of both China and the US, but also disrupt the world economy. The US should look at its practical cooperation with China in the trade and economic field objectively, rather than let it be hijacked by the anti-China brainwashed in Washington.