In US trade war, China will 'absolutely not' fire first shot

China says it will not implement retaliatory tariffs on imports from the United States before Washington starts imposing its own taxes on Friday.

China’s Finance Ministry on Wednesday dismissed media reports and accounts by sources familiar with the tariffs case, saying that Beijing would begin to impose tariffs on the imports from the beginning of the day on July 6, which means the measure will take effect 12 hours ahead of those announced by Washington given the time difference between the two countries.

The ministry clarified the issue by saying that China would “absolutely not” fire the first shot in a looming trade war with the United States.

“The Chinese government’s position has been stated many times. We absolutely will not fire the first shot, and will not implement tariff measures ahead of the United States doing so,” said the ministry.

Beijing has repeatedly said that it would retaliate in kind in the face of Washington's decision to impose tariffs on 34 billion dollars' worth of Chinese products.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang would not elaborate on when the tariffs would begin to be implemented although he insisted that Beijing was ready to act.

“China has already made preparations,” Lu said Wednesday while in a news briefing, adding, “As long as the United States issues a so-called tariff list, China will take necessary measures to firmly protect its legitimate interests.”

Chinese media on Wednesday was full of reports and analyses about the deepening trade dispute between two economic powers of the world. Most of those reports suggested that US President Donald Trump’s decision to target China and other economic powerhouses with tariffs would badly affect global trade.

The Global Times, a widely-read tabloid run by the ruling Communist Party, hailed China’s decision to reciprocate the US trade tariffs. However, it warned that the friction between China and the United States would finally hurt the US as well as global economy.

“It’s hard to predict where these moves will lead the world, but Washington will unavoidably pay heavy prices for its attempts to change the whole world to its economic tributary,” said the daily in its editorial, adding, “Counterstrike is major economies’ first reaction to Washington’s trade war.”

The official English-language China Daily also said tariffs by the Trump administration were meant to stifle China’s normal economic development and help the US maintain its economic hegemony.

“The US has maintained hegemony in the military and financial fields for many decades. Now it is pursuing economic hegemony,” said the newspaper in an editorial, adding, “It has frequently waged wars against other sovereign countries and made use of the dominant influence of the US dollar in the international markets to fleece other countries. Now it is attempting to resort to an all-out trade and economic war to hold back China’s normal development.”