BEIJING: The US has flouted trade rules with an inquiry into intellectual property and China will defend its interests, Vice Premier Liu He told US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a telephone call on Saturday, according to Chinese state media.
The call between Mnuchin and Liu, a confidante of President Xi Jinping, was the highest-level contact between the two governments since US President Donald Trump announced plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods on Thursday.
The deepening rift has sent a chill through financial markets and the corporate world as investors predicted dire consequences for the global economy should trade barriers start going up.
Several US chief executives attending a high-profile forum in Beijing on Saturday, including BlackRock Inc’s Larry Fink and Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, urged restraint.
In his call with Mnuchin, Liu, a Harvard-trained economist, said China still hoped both sides would remain “rational” and work together to keep trade relations stable, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
US officials said an eight-month probe under the 1974 US Trade Act has found that China engages in unfair trade practices by forcing American investors to turn over key technologies to Chinese firms.
However, the investigation report “violates international trade rules and is beneficial to neither Chinese interests, US interests nor global interests,” Xinhua cited Liu as saying.
In a statement on its website, the office of the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said it had filed a request — at the direction of Trump — for consultations with China at the World Trade Organization to address “discriminatory technology licensing agreements.”
China’s commerce ministry expressed regret at the filing on Saturday, and said China had taken strong measures to protect the legal rights and interests of both domestic and foreign owners of intellectual property.
During a visit to Washington in early March, Liu had requested Washington set up a new economic dialogue mechanism, identify a point person on China issues, and deliver a list of demands.
The Trump administration responded by telling China to immediately shave $100 billion off its record $375 billion trade surplus with the US.
Beijing told Washington that US export restrictions on some high-tech products are to blame.
“China has already prepared, and has the strength, to defend its national interests,” Liu said on Saturday.
Firing off a warning shot, China on Friday declared plans to levy additional duties on up to $3 billion of US imports in response to US tariffs on steel and aluminum, imposed after a separate US probe.
Zhang Zhaoxiang, senior vice president of China Minmetals Corp, said that while the state-owned mining group’s steel exports to the US are tiny, the impact could come indirectly.
“China’s direct exports to the US are not big. But there will
be some impact due to our exports via the US or indirect exports,” Zhang told reporters on the sidelines of the China Development Forum in Beijing on Saturday.
China’s state-run Global Times said Beijing was only just beginning to look at means to retaliate.
“We believe it is only part of China’s countermeasures, and soybeans and other US farm products will be targeted,” the widely read tabloid said in a Saturday editorial.
Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of thew Beijing-based think tank China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told China Daily that Beijing could impose tariffs on more US products, and is considering a second and even third list of targets.
Possible items include aircraft and chips, Wei, a former vice commerce minister, told the news-paper, adding that tourism could be a possible target.
The commerce ministry’s response had so far been “relatively weak,” respected former Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei said at the forum.
US farm groups have long feared that China, which imports more than third of all US soybeans, could slow purchases of agricultural products, heaping more pain on the struggling US farm sector.
US agricultural exports to China stood at $19.6 billion last year, with soybean shipments accounting for $12.4 billion.
Chinese penalties on US soybeans will especially hurt Iowa, a state that backed Trump in the 2016 presidential elections.
Boeing jets have also been often cited as a potential target by China.
China and the US had benefitted by globalization, Blackrock’s Larry Fink said at the forum.
“I believe that a dialogue — and maybe some adjustments in trade and trade policy — can be in order. It does not need to be done publicly; it can be done privately,” he said.
Apple’s Tim Cook called for “calm heads” amid the dispute.
The sparring has cast a spotlight on hardware makers such as Apple, which assemble most of their products in China for export to other countries.
Electrical goods and tech are the largest US import item from China.
Some economists said higher US tariffs will lead to higher costs and ultimately hurt US consumers, while restrictions on Chinese investments could take away jobs in America.
“I don’t think local governments in the US and President Trump hope to see US workers losing their jobs,” Sun Yongcai, general manager at Chinese railway firm CRRS Corp, which has two US plants, said at the forum.
— Reuters
Workers at a steel mill in Cangzhou, China. US President Donald Trump’s plans for steel and aluminum tariffs are at the heart of a deepening rift between the two trading giants.
China steps up rhetoric to defend trade, hit back at Donald Trump
China steps up rhetoric to defend trade, hit back at Donald Trump
AI will never replace human creativity, says SRMG CEO
- Speaking to Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, Jomana R. Alrashid expressed pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI
RIYADH: Jomana R. Alrashid, CEO of Saudi Research and Media Group, highlighted how AI cannot replace human creativity during a session at The Family Office’s “Investing Is a Sea” summit at Shura Island on Friday.
“You can never replace human creativity. Journalism at the end of the day, and content creation, is all about storytelling, and that’s a creative role that AI does not have the power to do just yet,” Alrashid told the investment summit.
“We will never eliminate that human role which comes in to actually tell that story, do the actual investigative reporting around it, make sure to be able to also tell you what’s news or what’s factual from what’s wrong ... what’s a misinformation from bias, and that’s the bigger role that the editorial player does in the newsroom.”
Speaking on the topic of AI, moderated by Maya Hojeij, senior business anchor at Asharq with Bloomberg, the CEO expressed her pride in SRMG platforms that had absorbed and adopted AI in a way that was “transformative.”
“We are now translating all of our content leveraging AI. We are also now being able to create documentaries leveraging AI. We now have AI-facilitated fact-checking, AI facilities clipping, transcribing. This is what we believe is the future.”
Alrashid was asked what the journalist of the future would look like. “He’s a journalist and an engineer. He’s someone who needs to understand data. And I think this is another topic that is extremely important, understanding the data that you’re working with,” she said.
“This is something that AI has facilitated as well. I must say that over the past 20 years in the region, especially when it comes to media companies, we did not understand the importance of data.”
The CEO highlighted that previously, media would rely on polling, surveys or viewership numbers, but now more detailed information about what viewers wanted was available.
During the fireside session, Alrashid was asked how the international community viewed the Middle Eastern media. Alrashid said that over the past decades it had played a critical role in informing wider audiences about issues that were extremely complex — politically, culturally and economically — and continued to play that role.
“Right now it has a bigger role to play, given the role again of social media, citizen journalists, content creators. But I also do believe that it has been facilitated by the power that AI has. Now immediately, you can ensure that that kind of content that is being created by credible, tier-A journalists, world-class journalists, can travel beyond its borders, can travel instantly to target different geographies, different people, different countries, in different languages, in different formats.”
She said that there was a big opportunity for Arab media not to be limited to simply Arab consumption, but to finally transcend borders and be available in different languages and to cater to their audiences.
The CEO expressed optimism about the future, emphasizing the importance of having a clear vision, a strong strategy, and full team alignment.
Traditional advertising models, once centered on television and print, were rapidly changing, with social media platforms now dominating advertising revenue.
“It’s drastically changing. Ultimately in the past, we used to compete with one another over viewership. But now we’re also competing with the likes of social media platforms; 80 percent of the advertising revenue in the Middle East goes to the social media platforms, but that means that there’s 80 percent interest opportunities.”
She said that the challenge was to create the right content on these platforms that engaged the target audiences and enabled commercial partnerships. “I don’t think this is a secret, but brands do not like to advertise with news channels. Ultimately, it’s always related with either conflict or war, which is a deterrent to advertisers.
“And that’s why we’ve entered new verticals such as sports. And that’s why we also double down on our lifestyle vertical. Ultimately, we have the largest market share when it comes to lifestyle ... And we’ve launched new platforms such as Billboard Arabia that gives us an entry into music.”
Alrashid said this was why the group was in a strong position to counter the decline in advertising revenues across different platforms, and by introducing new products.
“Another very important IP that we’ve created is events attached to the brands that have been operating in the region for 30-plus years. Any IP or any title right now that doesn’t have an event attached to it is missing out on a very big commercial opportunity that allows us to sit in a room, exchange ideas, talk to one another, get to know one another behind the screen.”
The CEO said that disruption was now constant and often self-driving, adding that the future of the industry was often in storytelling and the ability to innovate by creating persuasive content that connected directly with the audience.
“But the next disruption is going to continue to come from AI. And how quickly this tool and this very powerful technology evolves. And whether we are in a position to cope with it, adapt to it, and absorb it fully or not.”
