BEIJING: China on Tuesday swiftly retaliated against fresh US tariffs, announcing 10 percent-15 percent hikes to import levies covering a range of American agricultural and food products, moving the world’s top two economies a step closer toward an all-out trade war.
Beijing also placed twenty five US firms under export and investment restrictions on national security grounds, but refrained from punishing any household names, as it did when it retaliated against the Trump administration’s February 4 tariffs.
Ten of these 25 US firms were targeted by China for selling arms to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
China’s latest retaliatory tariffs came as the extra 10 percent duty US President Donald Trump threatened China with last week entered into force at 0501 GMT on March 4, resulting in a cumulative 20 percent tariff in response to what the White House considers Chinese inaction over drug flows.
China has accused the US of fentanyl blackmail and it has some of the toughest anti-drug policies in the world.
Analysts have said Beijing still hoped to negotiate a truce with the Trump administration, but the tit-for-tat retaliatory tariffs threaten to escalate into an all-out trade war between the two economic giants.
The new US tariffs represent an additional hike to preexisting levies on thousands of Chinese goods.
Some of these products bore the brunt of sharply higher US tariffs under former president Joe Biden last year, including a doubling of duties on Chinese semiconductors to 50 percent and a quadrupling of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to over 100 percent.
The 20 percent tariff will apply to several major US consumer electronics imports from China that were previously untouched, including smartphones, laptops, videogame consoles, smartwatches and speakers and Bluetooth devices.
China responded immediately after the deadline, announcing it will impose an additional 15 percent tariff on US chicken, wheat, corn and cotton and an extra 10 percent levy on US soybeans, sorghum, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits and vegetables and dairy imports from March. 10, the finance ministry announced in a statement.
“The US’s unilateral tariffs measures seriously violate World Trade Organization rules and undermine the basis for economic and trade cooperation between China and the US,” China’s commerce ministry said in a separate statement.
“China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” the statement added.
China hits back at US imports as Trump’s fresh tariffs take effect
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China hits back at US imports as Trump’s fresh tariffs take effect
- Beijing also places 25 US firms under export and investment restrictions on national security grounds
- China has accused the US of fentanyl blackmail and it has some of the toughest anti-drug policies in the world
At top UN court, Myanmar denies deadly Rohingya campaign amounts to genocide
- “Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” Hlaing told ICJ judges
- Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.
Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.
“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.
Gambia filed genocide case in 2019
African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar’s military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.
Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by US President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.
Myanmar denies Gambia claims of ‘genocidal intent’
As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”
Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council.
“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof,” he said. “This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”
Aung San Suu Kyi represented Myanmar at court in 2019. Now she’s imprisoned
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.
Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.
Gambia rejects Myanmar’s claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”
In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.
