China's finance minister Lou Jiwei labelled Donald Trump "an irrational type" after the Republican presidential front-runner called for tougher trade conditions for China, including hiking tariffs on Chinese imports to 45 per cent.
"Don't take the rhetoric in a presidential campaign too seriously. Trump is an irrational type," Mr Lou said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal at a recent meeting of finance chiefs from the Group of 20 advanced nations.
China is not a democracy but the US elections are closely watched, and there is a combination of fascination and loathing for Donald Trump here.
China is the United States’ biggest trading partner.
One popular state-owned tabloid, the Global Times, said last month how the "rich and narcissistic" Trump highlighted the institutional failures in US democracy, and compared his rise to that of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy.
Last week the same paper said in an editorial that Mr Trump’s China-bashing during the primaries had awakened a “deep nativism” in the States.
“From building up a wall along the US-Mexican border, banning all Muslims from entering the country, and expelling illegal immigrants, his remarks have turned this multicultural state’s “American dream” on its head,” it said.
Mr Trump has taken aim at the United States’ yawning trade deficit with China, which rose to $365.7 billion (€324.11 billion) last year from $343 billion (€304 billion) in 2014, and is up nearly 12 per cent in the first two months of 2016.
Mr Lou said any efforts to hike tariffs like that would be in violation of the rules set by the World Trade Organisation.
“If the US were to do what he proposed, then the US would not be entitled to its position as the world’s major power,” he said.
The world’s two biggest economies, the US and China, were “mutually dependent on each other.”
“Our economic cycles are intertwined. We have more in common than sets us apart. With a new administration, US-China ties should be more or less as they are now,” said Mr Lou.
Mr Trump has accused China of not allowing free trade and of not offering level playing fields for US manufacturers.
Over the weekend, Mr Trump continued to talk tough on China, saying China had waged "economic war" against the United States.
“Because we can’t continue to get ripped off like we’re being ripped off. You’ve got to look at it. And it is not war. I’m not talking about war. But they have waged economic war against us. What China has done --we have rebuilt China, so I hope you’re all happy with that … they’ve taken our jobs, they’ve taken our money.”
On the issue of economic reform in China, which some have said is not happening as quickly as it needs to, Mr Lou said that distortions are entrenched in China’s economic system, and therefore many don’t understand how significant many reforms have been.
“In the past three years, we’ve taken a lot of reform measures. One of the most important such measures is deregulation.
“The central government has abolished hundreds of items for approval requirements, and local governments are also moving in this direction and doing similar things,” he said.
